


Class Season 2

by shadow_in_the_shade



Category: Class (TV 2016), Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Childbirth, Claustrophobia, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Break Up, Weapons, Weeping Angels - Freeform, also it's not really a break up, charlie just gets melodramatic a lot, just read it ok, mild implied rape threat, more to follow as I think of them, religious homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-10-18 14:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 71,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17582366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: Tragically there is no Class Season 2 so I'm writing my own. Ten episodes in weekly instalments airing Monday nights. Picks up right where season one left off. April gets a perception filter, Quill has her baby, Tanya goes on a trip with the Doctor, Matteusz and Ram are done with it all and Charlie's lost the plot. That's just episode one.Essentially as with season one some episodes stand alone with an over-arching plot throughout the season in which The Governors prepare for The Arrival. "Weeping angels, Quill has a dangerous child. Charlie and Matteusz shirtless chopping wood" as Patrick Ness put it. There almost certainly will be a season 3. Btw I reeeeaaaaally ship Charlie/ Matteusz and also April/ Ram. A lot. Deal with it.Also please believe that if i could do title credits for this Matteusz would be in them as a main character. :-)





	1. EPISODE 1: UP ALL NIGHT

 

**Episode 1. Up All Night.**

 

 

Before anyone has time to respond or even process April's question, two very loud things happen more or less simultaneously.

 

The first thing is that Quill screams. An ear splitting, piercing shriek of a scream that makes Tanya cover her ears. Charlie and Matteusz swoop in on either side of Quill, catching her as one as she falls back, face contorted in agony, shrugging at each other in helpless confusion.

 

“Oh COME ON!” Quill bellows at them - “Isn't it _obvious!”_

 

Charlie still looks puzzled, still not processing any of the events of the last half hour. Matteusz swears quietly in Polish as a puddle of blood and water seeps out from under Quill, soaking them both as they kneel beside her.

 

The second noise to split the room is a rushing, wheezing, grinding crunch that Ram realises he recognises just as the TARDIS materialises into view. The Doctor steps out into the screaming and confusion and looks around quickly -

 

“Would it be too much to ask what in the world is going on?”

 

“Help her!” Ram yells.

 

“Help who?” April frowns; at least Ram thinks she frowns, it's really quite hard to tell in that body. She stares at Ram staring at her and he thinks that her face shows a complete lack of comprehension before she looks slowly downward, makes a strangled sound and moves backwards as if trying to get away from herself. The Doctor dashes over, joining them on the floor, scanning April up and down with his sonic. Tanya stares at them blinking from across the room -

 

“Er – shouldn't you be where the person is screaming first?”

 

The Doctor throws Quill and the boys a cursory glance.

 

“Nah. Just a Quill giving birth. Seen it before. Nasty but normal, I'm afraid – now you -”

 

“Oh that's just FINE!” Quill screams - “Please. Please ignore the screaming Quill who's about to die! That's just – PEACHY!” She shrieks again, punching Matteusz in the arm as he tries to support her head, and for a moment everyone just stares in a locked moment of horror none of them knew they had left as something explodes from her in a shower of blood that soaks most of the room.

 

The creature – whatever it is – blood soaked and clawed, and roughly the size of a human baby, moves at frightening lightning speed, whipping back round and launching itself at Quill, opening its jaw almost impossibly wide and aiming for her face. With reflexes nobody has seen before, Charlie grabs it out of the air and holds it tight, squeezing -

 

“Don't hurt it!” Quill yells.

 

“It's trying to kill you!” Charlie yells back.

 

“That's just what we DO! Does nobody LISTEN?”

 

The thing in Charlie's hands squirms and writhes, twisting its neck to snap at his fingers, and Matteusz adds his grip to Charlie's to try and hold it in place whereupon, with a sound of shifting bone and muscle it changes shape and slips from both of their hands, this time attempting to launch itself at Quill's chest.

 

“You've just come out, you little shit!” she yells, scrabbling at it. “What - now you want back in?”

 

Between the three of them they wrest it off again and as it squirms and changes in their hands the Doctor launches himself at the group, zapping at it with his sonic until it goes still.

 

“The fuck did you do?”

 

“Sonic set to stun.” He squints at the creature, now prostrate in his hands - “It's a work in progress, don't know how long it'll last. Basically, get ready to grab – what _is_ this?”

 

“How the hell should I know?”

 

“Not to be graphic, Miss Quill, but it just jumped out of _your_ womb. Interesting -” he adds, continuing to scan it. “Half Quill, half Lore- and the father is-?”

 

“Dead. Irrelevant point. Is it still going to try and kill me?”

 

“Unclear. Clearly it was born with the Quill instinct to attack and eat the parent, but it's entirely possible that having failed in that initial urge it will stop trying and – oh, I'm terribly sorry, apparently it's a _he_ not an it – although it's unlikely you'll know for sure until it tells you so himself- rather like humans, if you only knew. Congratulations Miss Quill, it's a healthy baby something and you're the first surviving Quill parent!”

 

“Oh, lucky bloody me! What the hell do I do now?”

 

“I don't know, there's really no precedent for this – ah, I think it's waking – yep, it's definitely wiggling, bit bitey but not attempting to kill – here hold it -”

 

“Why me?”

 

“You're its mum! Hold it! Now you -”

 

He spins back round and scoots down on the floor next to April.

 

“Yes. I see, totally human inside, body of the Shadowkin leader outside – you died, yes?”

 

April frowns.

 

“Um – yes? Only for a few minutes though -”

 

“And the Prince opened the cabinet, destroying all the Shadowkin, yes? Concerning which -” he whips his head back round to glare at Charlie - “We will talk – and the last soul – yes -” he scans Charlie quickly, frowning - “Now _you're_ part shadow instead? What? Ah - I see – the last soul should have killed you but something stopped it – failing that it went to the last person the Shadow King attached himself to, yes I'm starting to see – but first just let me – hang on -”

 

The Doctor gets up, dashes back into the TARDIS and comes out again -

 

“There's nothing I can do about your body, Miss McLean, but here -”

 

He hands her a small gold ring. April holds it up to the light, almost swamping it entirely in one massive hand.

 

“Umm – pretty? I'm not really a jewellery pers -”

 

“Perception filter. As long as you wear it people will see you as they always did, you will still be you, even you will perceive yourself as you always were with each of your senses but take it off and -” he gestures her Shadowkin form - “Honestly, it's the best I can do.”

 

“But -” Ram watches all of this, not understanding - “What the hell _happened?_ April you – you _died –_ I _saw_ you die – and then – what were you going to say about the souls, Doctor?”

 

“The wish,” The Doctor stands up, pacing, thinking it through on the spot. “The fairytale you said -” he gestures to Charlie who stands up slowly, as if at trial in a trance. “There was a story among your people – and I am truly sorry for their loss – that the souls could be restored in the bodies of the race that they destroyed. It really _was_ just a story – or at least mostly, but you believed it – you _wished_ for it, didn't you? And it wasn't enough, of course it wasn't, but it _was_ enough to save just one – just the last person who died, and the nearest, and the one you did not want to have died – your wish saved her – but it doesn't mean -” his face darkens - “I told you not to use it, that I would blame you, and I do.”

 

Charlie swallows, nods, looking as though sentence has already been passed and accepting it.

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

“You committed genocide – what do you think I should do?”

 

“Wait -” Tanya stands up slowly. “Wait, that wasn't his fault though? We all asked him to do it, we all wanted him to – well except - ” she makes a weak gesture at Matteusz who stands nearby, bewilderment scrawled across his face so bright it looks like innocence. “We _pushed_ him to do it –” Tanya says. “Especially me. Charlie – I'm so sorry – I knew I was asking you to die and I asked it anyway and I don't think I can be sorry enough for that but - ” she turns back to the Doctor - “He did it for all of us, even though he knew he'd die too, and at the loss of all – who could possibly blame him for that?”

 

The Doctor looks at her for a long time and then drops his head.

 

“I could,” Matteusz says startlingly into the sudden strange silence.

 

“What?” Charlie stares at him like the air has just left him.

 

“I am sorry,” Matteusz says, reaching out a hand like he has to, like there's a magnet drawing it to Charlie's face. “I am so very sorry. I thought I had lost you, and I am so glad you are still here, but I cannot persuade you that you have not lost me, and I don't know that I can help you in everything to come and I don't know what has happened or what more can still happen here but I cannot -” he swallows hard, taking a deep shuddering breath and saying the last bit quickly and thickly through tears - “I cannot just for now, not with any of this. I have to think - I'm done. I'm sorry, Charlie.”

 

He runs from the room as though every monster they have fought is still there. Everyone looks everywhere but at each other, especially not at Charlie.

 

“He's right,” Ram says, streaming tears. “It's too much, all of this – none of us should ever – I'm sorry April – I have to go. Gonna find my mum. I'm sorry.”

 

He leaves without looking even April in the eye, not giving her a chance to speak or turning to see her put the ring on her finger and stand there still and shocked and looking herself again.

 

“Well?” Charlie faces the Doctor with blazing, dry red-rimmed eyes, his voice high and harsh - “Do it. Whatever you're going to do just _do it._ Kill me. I don't care.”

 

“I don't kill people,” the Doctor says. He takes a step towards Charlie, emanating compassion. Charlie backs away from it.

 

“Please -” he whispers - “Somebody just -”

 

At which point Tanya bursts loudly and messily into tears at the same time as the TARDIS doors open and a girl steps out, frowning -

 

“Doctor what the hell is going on here?”

 

The Doctor sidesteps Tanya's attempt to hug him as the nearest available adult, and the girl steps in, hugging Tanya back with no little confusion. Tanya struggles to explain through her tears, to tell the newcomer everything, all of the events of the past few hours but all that comes out is a little girl's voice wailing -

 

“My _mum!”_ She buries her face and Bill hugs her tight. The Doctor looks around the room for someone to explain.

 

“Her mum died,” April says, taking a deep breath and pushing past her own problems to explain Tanya's. “Just – hours ago -” could it really be only hours, she thinks, it feels like a lifetime - “Shadowkin. And Ram's dad.”

 

“You can bring her back!” Tanya says, on the back of a sudden revelation - “Can't you? You can travel in time and space, you can bring my mum back!”

 

“Oh no,” the Doctor holds up his hands - “Nonononono I don't do that. We never do that. Big no. I'm sorry.”

 

“You're _sorry?”_ It's Bill who yells, surprising even Tanya - “Her mum just died and all you can say is _sorry? Why_ can't you bring her back?”

 

“Come on Bill, you know as well as I do that fixed events cannot be changed or the whole universe messes up around it.”

 

“Well who says it's a fixed event? Shadowkin invasion, not exactly natural, am I right?”

 

“That's not the -” the Doctor stops, frowns - “Well actually, it could be the point.”

 

“Well thank goodness, cause if you weren't going to do something I'd have to, and you know what I did with the monks.”

 

The Doctor groans at Bill then instantly flashes a smile on Tanya -

 

“Tanya! How would you like to come on a little trip with Bill and I? I think I know how we can get your mum back!”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really! Bill, do the honours.”

 

Bill grins and takes Tanya by the hand, ushering her into the TARDIS -

 

“You are gonna love this bit.”

 

“Right, that's that, then -” The Doctor looks around and then frowns. “Where did everybody go?”

 

“Well -” April looks around, biting her lip, just realising. Quill is strapping what currently looks like a fairly normal human baby to her back and apparently completely ignoring them. There's nobody else in the room. “Tanya's gone with you. Ram left, Matteusz left – where's Charlie?”

 

For a long minute they both just stare around the hall as though expecting him to appear. He doesn't.

 

“Where did he go?” April asks the room at large.

 

“Could be bad,” the Doctor frowns - “I suspect the Prince is in no position to be safe on his own at the moment. He's lost his people, his human, _and_ committed genocide in the space of an hour – that's more than anyone should have to deal with. Even I can't begin to imagine how he's feeling just now – well, I can begin, but -”

 

“So can I,” Quill interrupts cuttingly, standing up straight and startling them. “I know where Charles has gone. Trust me. I've got this.”

 

“You do know -” the Doctor shouts after her before she can run from the room as fast as it looks like she means to - “I mean, I'm not trying to stop you, but – you don't have that thing in your head any more, am I right?”

 

“What about it?”

 

“I just wondered if you realised that you are no longer under any obligation to keep saving the Prince of Rhodia.”

 

Quill sighs heavily, her face clearly indicating that she would rather not think about this or the fact that she has already done exactly that at least three times since the Arn was removed from her head.

 

“And yet.” She shrugs hugely, rolls her eyes and runs.

 

“I -” The Doctor stares at April in the very heavy silence that follows Quill's departure, as though April can pardon him a crime he has only just become aware of committing - “I made rather a hash of this, didn't I?”

 

“Yes,” she shrugs, tired, so tired but not unkindly, crawling with strangeness in her own unfamiliar skin - “You did. Sorry.” She presses her lips together in a tight, apologetic way. “Sorry,” she says again, acutely aware of the _Time lord_ all but deferring to her; it's too much - “I should go to. I need to see my mum now.” She looks at the floor for a moment, aware that she almost forgot to be brave; she almost just said _I need my mum_ like a little girl. The Doctor looks at her curiously for a long moment, looking confused that he can hear her asking in her head the question she does not dare say out loud -

 

“You were,” he says, putting a hand gently and quickly on her shoulder in an awkward half pat - “You really were brave.”

 

He turns away confused, wondering how he can hear a human's thoughts, wondering why he feels like there was someone else he should have said that to. He squints at the Coal Hill Honour Board as though it has the answers, shrugs and disappears into his box.

 

As the TARDIS dematerialises April looks around her and here she is, alone in this room where so much has happened, and she cannot help but feel a sense of coming back to the beginning; she was alone then too, the night before the prom. She remembers Charlie saying that in the end he would be the last one standing; she had known even then that he was wrong. Because this does feel like the end, even though it _can't_ be, not really. For the first time since it all began, she she does something so alien to her that it is stranger even than her alien body, even if she can lock it up so hard as to fool even herself, she feels her human image like a disguise now – she bursts into tears. She streams her sobs silently in the hall, crying for Ram, for Tanya, for their parents and for the pain of hope. She cries for Quill and for Charlie and the people and world they have lost. She cries for Charlie and Matteusz and how it looks just now, because knows if they cannot make it what hope is there for anyone else? She cries for Ram again. Finally, only very finally, when she only just has the energy left for it, she cries for herself. She cries for who she was not so long ago and for not knowing who that is now.

 

She goes home.

 

__x__

 

Anyone seeing Quill rush down the street in the dark of that night might have been forgiven for thinking that truly war itself had come and was violently on the move. She runs like a violent wind and woe betide anyone who does not hear her roar. The wind shrieks _out of my way!_ And it throws aside anyone too slow to move on time. She can feel the muscles in her own face stretched in lines of urgency and does not even know where the hammering in her chest comes from. _I just gave birth –_ she thinks – _the sweet hell am I doing?_ The child; a strange thing, she has no thoughts on it yet, does not move or cry, does not as far as she can tell even wake.

 

Here it is; the multi storey car park on the street corner, on the left. This has to be the one.

 

__x__

 

The shadows are gone, all but the one on Charlie's heart, but they have left winds enough in their wake to sting his face until it goes numb. _Good,_ he thinks _this is good, let it not hurt, let me not care,let me be brave._ Because it feels cowardly to pause now, even with nothing to hold him back, and it is beyond ridiculous to be afraid of the wind blowing him off of a roof he came up here to jump from and yet -

 

There's a shadow on his heart it's true, it would hang there no matter what because it's too much, every bit of it, all far too much. When nobody saw him leave the school, he knew – even if it was the most off – kilter kind of knowledge – that he was doing the right thing. The only thing he could do.

 

Charlie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

 

__x__

 

Matteusz closes his eyes and tales a deep breath. Even as he raises his hand to knock tentatively on the door he knows, with a sickening drop of his heart, that he is doing he wrong thing, he knew it the moment he left the school, but now – it has to be too late to go back from this now. Besides it has to be the only thing he can do.

 

He knocks. Opens his eyes. The door opens. He nods once, careful, neutral.

 

“Father”.

 

The man nods back, careful, neutral, stands aside to let him in.

 

It should feel like relief but it feels like falling.

 

__x__

 

It feels like falling, but he's not, and the fact that he is not throws him off balance; he panics, scuttling back from the edge, fighting the grip that drags him back but at the same time terrified and dizzy with the thought of losing balance. It's a moment of sheer panic and confusion in which he does not know what scares him more, falling and drying or _not_ falling and dying.

 

“Let me go!” he thrashes and kicks and tries to bite the arm that holds him back. The yank back he gets in return sends them both falling backwards onto the concrete.

 

“Oh no you bloody don't.”

 

“Quill? What the hell – what are you doing?”

 

“What am I doing? What am _I_ doing? What the bloody hell are you doing, you complete and utter – argh!”

 

Charlie wrenches free, surprising her, she had forgotten how strong Rhodians could be under pressure. They both fall back at awkward angles across the tarmac, grit in their palms, panting heavily and glaring at each other. Charlie swipes the back of his hand across his face, bewildered by how wet it is.

 

“They're gone,” he says, just like before in the school hall - “They're all gone! I should be gone with them – I – I said -”

 

“And I said you had to live with that! Not go jump off a bloody cliff!”

 

“I can't, I _can't –_ how do I – how does anybody _live with that?”_

 

“ _I_ do. Get a grip!”

 

“But you – but I -” Charlie can only babble, choking on tears and the lump in his throat, the emptiness in his chest, all of it feeling like it ought to just kill him on the spot and somehow, hopelessly, appallingly it does not. “I was _responsible_ for them – for my people – even though I knew they were gone – I mean logically, the hope – the hope that there was something I could do and now -”

 

“Yeah.” Quill nods - “I should have known. Back when I wondered how it didn't eat you up, I should have known. But now it will and you know what? You'll live. Just like I did.”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Yes.”_

 

“Kill me. Just – you always wanted to. Just do it.”

 

“No.”

 

“You _hate_ me- I'm the only one left. The only one you can take revenge on. You can. If we'd met on the battlefield, you said -”

 

“I'd end up saving your life and you know it.”

 

They stare at each other in a state of naked confession worse than when they assumed mutual hatred and it hangs there between them almost visually – how many times they have saved each other, over and over, even when they did not mean or need to, like it has always been an impulse, like something that had to be done, like you would for family or friends.

 

“But – but -” the idea of ending it all, once scuppered, remains too strong to dismiss too easily and he _has_ to search himself for a further reason - “ _Matteusz” -_ he finds it.

 

“Ah yes. Wondered when we'd get to that. That's the real one isn't it? When you think about it? Never mind your entire people, it's just that one, and you don't know what bothers you more- you know what _ought_ to bother you more and it doesn't, does it? That's why you feel like such a shit – that's why -”

 

“Shut _up_ Quill. _Please -_ just shut up.” It's a good enough admission of agreement for Quill, and she does shut up. For almost a minute they just stare across the concrete at each other, the grey wind whipping round them, trying to find anything to hold onto for strength and stillness.

 

“He's not left you, you know,” Quill hears herself talk, still unsure why she's doing any of this.

 

“He _has -”_

 

“Christ! Don't you _listen?_ Why is it so hard for you to see what you've got? He said _for now,_ you pillock – I'm aware it was babbled and heavily accented but if I got the point, so should you, he's _your_ bloody soulmate! Humans are flimsy, haven't you noticed? They love their _time to think_ and “re- gather” or whatever the hell it is they do. He ll be back; deal with it.” She will never admit how much she hopes this is true, how used she has become to the two of them, almost defensive.

 

“No,” Charlie hangs on to the conviction stubbornly - “No, I've lost him – I -”

 

“Oh, will you get OVER yourself? You think you've lost him if he's been too long in the Co-op! Why are you _so_ convinced you're going to lose everything?”

 

“Maybe because I always do?”

 

“Or _maybe_ because you never had anything to start with?”

 

“What? That's ridiculous.”

 

“Is it? Is it, _Prince_? You think I don't know how your people worked? Do you really think I'd be ignorant of the enemy I infiltrated? An emotionless bunch of pompous nincompoops the lot of them, unfeeling, callous and dull -”

 

“How dare you? This is hardly the time -”

 

“No, this is exactly the time - Incapable of real love and attachment, the lot of you, and I think you know that yourself - but not you. Even the Lankin couldn't get you – not with attachments to your entire past life; no, you had _others that were stronger,_ you said – and that was after what, weeks? No, you were different, even then, and I think you know it – and I think your beastly parents knew it too -”

 

“Don't you dare talk about my -”

 

“Don't make me slap you. You were barely closer to them than I was. Don't give me effrontery you only feel because you know you should. You were an alien even among your own people; the only time you've even lived is in these past few months and look how quickly you found a bunch of idiots who loved you – so don't you _dare_ throw that away after all this time, are you hearing me?”

 

“I – I -” Charlie's chin wobbles, but what the hell, he knows she hasn't said a single wrong thing and it's not like he needs or even could try to look strong just now. He curls up into a ball, arms wound tightly round his knees and cries. Quill swears quietly, closes her eyes and edges closer, extending a hand towards him like she's about to pat a porcupine and rests it as comfortingly on his back as she knows how.

 

“There,” she says awkwardly, her tone flatter than flat - “There there”. She almost sticks out her tongue at how strange the words taste. Charlie cries hard and she lets him until finally he turns a red and silvery face to her, eyes big and lost, always focussing on anything, grasping for anyone who might offer comfort and contact. It occurs to her to remember that Rhodians do not _hug_ , not ever and their Prince especially, for all the pageantry and songs praising his actual existence, must have had nothing personal from anyone. She has never tasted pity before and it makes her feel sick.

 

“I don't even know what _gone_ means any more,” he whispers - “Or _lost –_ I just don't-”

 

“Yeah,” she nods, and the familiar words of her own people come back to her again, an utterance filled with a respect and sympathy a Rhodian would never understand but maybe one day she can explain - “It Is A Sorrow I Share,” she says. The Prince clings tight to the Quill and cries and she holds on fiercely, pressing his head to her chest and rocking them both.

 

-x-

 

“How did you know?” Charlie asks, tired and cold and utterly drained, but still alive and out in the street, walking and talking if not quite actually _here._ There's a cold watery light dawning to tell them they have made it through the night and it seems amazing that they have and it is wondrous to see sunlight again, like the night has lasted forever.

 

“What?” Quill says sharply, perhaps a little more sharply than she needs to but it's a return to form that they both find curiously comforting.

 

“Where I'd be. You came quick enough.”

 

“Oh please. You think I don't learn things from living with you? You think I don't overhear – well - essentially an awful lot more than I ever need to overhear? You didn't shut up about the bloody date all day.”

 

“Huh,” he nods. He remembers. It had been in the early weeks, before Matteusz even lived with them, not long at all after prom night really. They had been talking during break, he remembers it word for word, almost moment for moment.

 

“ _So,” Mateusz said, offering him a crisp, speaking through a face of them - “You really are new to all this.”_

 

“ _What do you mean?”_

 

“ _This -” he made an all encompassing gesture, so wide Charlie had to lean back - “School. London, this place. This planet – people – it must be strange.”_

 

“ _Yes,” he nodded, smiling, because everything they said, everything they did was sweet and charming and made him happy. The way Matteusz looked at him, half shy, half cocky, entirely curious and deeply affectionate – all of it made his chest do things he had had to google search to make sure they were not symptoms of illness, though the expression “butterflies in the stomach” had initially alarmed him so much an entire extra google search had been required on top of the first google search - “But I like it. Learning. Finding out about it all. Finding out about you -” he had meant_ you _to mean the human race but he was only looking at Matteusz. Matteusz had looked back at him with a wondering expression that he could not quite understand but which made his heart feel strange and he reached to touch his face lightly, fingers drifting down his neck. He felt himself swallow hard and made a mental note to google_ these _symptoms later as well in case this was what human dying felt like._

 

“ _So you do not know London then?”_

 

“ _No, I suppose not.”_

 

“ _I could show you. Things. Places. The big stuff. I remember when I came here how it was all so strange and different and – is all very confusing and sometimes disconcerting – like all you end up doing is living between home and school and seeing nothing else because – it's scary – like easy to get lost – is it – is it like that for you?”_

 

_He nods hard -_

 

“ _Very much. Do you suppose -” and he stops because it's so soon and he worries that he is being too bold and at the same time Matteusz says, slowly because it is so soon and he is worried about being too bold -_

 

“ _I could show you? The parts of it I know? Like tourists, if you like.”_

 

“ _I would like.”_

 

 _They made it a date for the next weekend and got the tube to Westminster early Saturday morning. Charlie remembers holding hands almost all day, how it felt like_ so much _contact it was wonderful and Matteusz looked at him and squeezed when Charlie held his hand like he could not contain the excitement of doing this in public, like it was dreadfully daring but also the best feeling in the world. They ran hand in hand across Westminster bridge like something they had seen on TV. They saw all the major London landmarks from the outside without paying to actually go into anything because Matteusz had apologetically admitted to not having so much money and Charlie was concerned that it would be improper to admit that_ he _did. They had stopped and looked up at the London eye and contemplated actually going on._

 

“ _It seems like a strange thing to do.” Charlie frowns._

 

“ _I think so. Possibly over priced and likely to make one feel sick.”_

 

“ _Let's – not and say we did? Is that the expression?Be nice to see what it all looked like from above though.”_

 

“ _Ah. I think I have an idea.”_

 

_Mateusz grinned then and, taking his hand again, led him to the multi storey car park, Charlie frowning but not questioning. When they reached the top, they came to this point, the point he came back to today, and looked out across the city, so many of the rooftops spread below them from up here and the higher buildings looking closer than he had ever seen them. He remembers the light of that day, the bright cold golden autumn smell of it and and the warmth of Matteusz' body pressed against him as he stood behind him arms wrapped around him and his chin resting on the top of Charlie's head._

 

“ _I think this view is as good as from the big wheel?” he grinned._

 

“ _Has to be,” Charlie nodded, eyes wide, feeling like a leader surveying a new territory, all of it his, maybe theirs - “At least. And better without the moving and the vertigo.”_

 

“ _You have vertigo?”_

 

“ _No. But I think I would if I went on that thing.”_

 

“ _Fair enough. You like it?”_

 

_He had turned round with shining eyes -_

 

“ _I love it! Matteusz, I -” saying his name made him feel funny - “I feel like you've given me it - Given me the world – I – thank you.”_

 

“ _If I could, I would”._

 

_They had kissed up there for a long time, breathless and urgent, staring at each other with wide open frightened eyes that could see where this was going and could barely take in the size and the depth of it all, bigger by far than the city spread out below them._

 

Afterwards they had gone back to Charlie's house and he remembers them talking, excited and unchecked about everything. He remembers Quill's -

 

“There's another of my students in my house. Why is that happening?”

 

He remembers giving her little more than a “because I say so” that he now feels oddly awkwardly ashamed about. She had grunted and said nothing else but she had been there the whole time, side eyeing them from over her book.

 

“And you guessed where I'd be just from that?” he frowns.

 

“You're _really_ just not as unpredictable as you think you are, Prince.”

 

He makes a _huh_ sound again and nods a little. The world still feels almost too heavy for him to bear but his head seems to be settling down to the idea of living with it. He's not okay, but thankfully nobody seems to be telling him he has to be. Quill looks at him sharply then turns away quickly when he notices and he almost smiles but the movement does not quite reach his lips.

 

“Quill?” He frowns, looking across at her, anything to not talk about the things he cannot stop thinking about. They are nearly home and he knows he won't be able to do anything other than go to his room and stay there for a long time.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Are you aware you have a baby on your back?”

 

“Details. We'll work it out.”

 

She shrugs and opens the door for him.

 

___x___

 

**Next week on Class: Ram comes back, Tanya climbs up a giant, April flirts with Matteusz, Quill has a conversation with a large capybara and Charlie's room is in urgent need of a clean out. :-)**

 


	2. CHAPTER 2: IN THE MORNING

 

**Episode 2. In The Morning.**

 

It has not been long since Tanya started to think there was nothing that could really surprise her any more. But that was before finding herself halfway up a giant's trouser leg, attempting to reach its pocket without being seen, while the Doctor and Bill danced around on the ground in an attempt to distract it. On the plus side, the distraction technique did seem to be working; on the down side it meant that the giant would not stop moving, all of its movements making Tanya's attempt to hold on, let alone climb, more precarious by the second.

 

It had not actually occurred to her that giants were quite this _big._ Not that it was something she had ever really had cause to think about, but the Doctor had just patted her on the shoulder -

 

“Like I said last time I was here – giants come in all sizes.”

 

“Ah – you've been here before then?” She finds something at least a little bit comforting in that, but then any snatch of reassurance will do since stepping out of the TARDIS into a forest that instantly appeared around them, the Doctor saying -

 

“Do not sign anything, talk to any old ladies, wish for anything or go into any cute looking houses unless I tell you. This place will try and eat you, not to mention the houses themselves. Some of them even have tongues.”

 

Tanya's next question,

 

“So you know what you're doing then?” had garnered less of a reassuring reaction than she hoped.

 

“Not in the slightest, it was four lifetimes ago and I didn't have a clue what I was doing then either. I _did_ gain a reputation as Doctor – Know- all though.” He adds this a little bit smugly, and Bill snorts behind them.

 

“Why does _that_ not surprise me”.

 

Finally they reached the giant's lair and the Doctor had grinned like they were already winning.

 

“Right. Now all you have to do is climb up his leg and steal the wishing box from his pocket. Piece of cake.”

 

“O – kay, your idea of cake is not my idea of cake but -”

 

“But at least we can agree that we all like cake?”

 

Tanya turned to Bill -

 

“How does he not drive you bonkers?”

 

“Oh, he does.”

 

“Come on people, time's a wasting! Missy's going to kill me as it is if she finds out about this, and if she doesn't, Nardole certainly will, and honestly I'm not sure which of them I'd rather got me first -”

 

Tanya starts to think she may as well never stop frowning, just to save herself an effort -

 

“Who's Missy? Doctor are you _married?”_

 

Bill snorts again.

 

“Don't even go there”.

 

“Right. Giant's trouser leg it is then.” Tanya nods to herself more bravely than she feels. It's like climbing a tree that will not stop swaying in a storm; a fabric clad, upsettingly warm and rather bad smelling tree, and though it feels like a victory when she tumbles into the giant's pocket, it is a musty victory in which it is hard to breathe. But somehow she manages to grab the box and climb back down and then, when she's on firm ground again, is when the giant notices them. The rest is not so much a chase as a frantic dance between the giant's feet so as not to get stepped on all the way back to the TARDIS. They fall inside and are gone.

 

“Right then,” she says, producing the box and holding it out to the Doctor, “what's the words?”

 

The Doctor grins at her brightly.

 

“Good girl. Right question. You see wishing boxes are tricky things, last friend I had who used one ended up a servant to a bunch of ugly stepsisters -”

 

“- so one of the common dangers in travelling with the Doctor, then.”

 

“Shut up Bill, don't interrupt. So yes, you have to be _very careful_ in your wording. One wish can't cover both people, just one person or a whole species, no in betweens. It has to come from the heart and you have to say _please._ The wish likes it. So here's what you say -”

 

He tells her the words and, even though he tells her the closing of eyes is not necessary, she closes her eyes all the same and repeats them twice, first one wish and then, after a deep breath, the second.

 

“- _Please,”_ she finishes the second wish, and does not dare open her eyes.

 

“Tanya -”

 

She still does not quite dare.

 

“ _What_ in the world is going on?” _Then_ she opens them, because that voice, raised and confused and somehow at the same time affronted makes her smile from ear to ear.

 

“Mum!” She rushes her mum and holds on tight, tighter than she has since she was ever so little. Vivian holds onto her in return but cannot stop staring round the TARDIS. Meanwhile Varun stands nearby, blinking rapidly.

 

“What _is_ going on?” he says - “Or should I say, what is going on _now?”_

 

“Ah,” says the Doctor. “Ram's dad? I'll guess he's told you most of everything then.”

 

“Oh my god,” Bill looks at them all, vaguely smiling - “You're two thousand years old and still calling him _Ram's Dad?”_

 

“I don't know his name,” the Doctor shrugs. “Besides, trust me when I say that when I was little my best friend's mum would not let me call her that on pain of pain and social humiliation. I'm making up for lost time. Let it go.”

 

Meanwhile Tanya and Vivian have let go of each other long enough to stare at each other smiling, nodding but with a weight of expectation hanging between them -

 

“I – think we have a lot of things to talk about?” Tanya ventures.

 

“Yes,” Vivian says, nodding.

 

__x__

 

 _For god's sake, Ram!_ April thinks for the millionth time – _where are you?_ She slams her phone down in frustration, not letting herself leave yet another message. Strange to think, with everything they went through together – not just her and Ram, she knows that, but _all_ of them – that _this_ feels like the real week from hell. She knows too that this is the crux – it is the fact that they are _not_ together – she rather suspects not _any_ of them – this is her new hell, this and the things she can't talk to anyone about yet. She cannot get through to Ram who she needs to talk to about everything that's happened to him, she cannot get through to Charlie who she needs to talk to about _everything_ and who might even understand the changes she's dealing with quietly although _dealing with_ is maybe not the right phrase so much as she is desperately pushing them behind her in favour of fretting about her violently fractured friend group, wondering where she can help. Tanya is god knows where with the Doctor, and her one conversation with Quill yielded so little that was helpful as to just make her more frustrated and _that_ was three days ago now. It's Saturday; school's over for the summer and they have not all been together since the previous Friday. It feels like a lifetime. The fact that her attempt to talk to her mother about it all yielded only sympathy, and “Everything feels like a lifetime when you're seventeen,” has not helped in the slightest either.

 

She spoke to Quill on Wednesday, after a genuine hundred and more attempts to call or text Charlie had come up with nothing and she had cracked and gone round to his house only to have the door opened by a distinctly frazzled looking Quill, something wild in her eyes, barking - “Yes?” at her as though April was selling something. For an awkward moment April wants to ask her if _she_ is alright, but she is not quite sure how to and then still feels rude for asking -

 

“Is Charlie alright?” instead and without even a hello - “Only – he's not answering his phone and -”

 

“Figures. He doesn't even come out of his room.”

 

“What _happened?”_

 

Quill sighs heavily;

 

“You'd better come in.” She opened the door and let April in ungraciously, filling her in with as much brevity as details allowed, none of reassuring April in the least.

 

“Is he -” she knows it's a stupid question but she has to ask it anyway - “Is he any better now?”

 

Quill looks at her so witheringly she has to look away.

 

“Peachy,” she dead pans eventually. “If by _better_ you mean attempting to kill himself slowly rather than an actual short walk off a high cliff or whatever your saying is. His people are _gone_ , his boyfriend's gone AWOL, and if I have to hear him weep the words _lost_ or _gone_ one more time I might actually be tempted to take him up on his pleas and put him out of his increasingly stinky misery.”

 

“Is there – anything I can do?”

 

Quill shakes her head, not entirely unkindly, and there is no position April could find herself in that she finds personally more frustrating. She _has_ to help, it's how she functions, she can feel her heart hammering and blazing in her chest from having no outlet, it _is_ too big for her, this heart, now it's all her own again even if her physicality is a question she does not dare to think too much about at this point, just like Quill said – too much heart. It hurts her to imagine how dark Charlie's world must look right now, and cannot help but glance in an upstairs direction as Quill starts to usher her out as though by wishing it he might come down and she could speak to him. She only allows herself to be seen out on Quill's assurance that she is at least keeping him eating, drinking and away from pointy objects, though it does not ease her to know how entirely this help is needed. She dithers at the door, desperately hoping for something to go on, she does not even know what. Perhaps Quill sees her desperation because on the verge of closing the door she sighs and says -

 

“Matteusz,” though she already sounds hopeless about it. April frowns questioningly -

 

“If you can,” Quill shrugs - “If you really want to help Charles, and – well that's just _you_ isn't it?” she makes it sound like an insult - “Get Matteusz”. April nods heavily, though she feels the hopelessness of this even more than Quill; as if they did not know already that there was only one person who could help Charlie.

 

“I'll try,” she says.

 

This is her one straw to clutch on now – and as the more she thinks about it, the more tenuous it seems. Because she has already _tried_ to contact Matteusz, of course she has, she spent all that first Saturday trying, the same as she tried texting everyone else; not even just for Charlie's sake, because as far as she knows Matteusz is her friend after all and he's gone, run off in as much distress as Ram, though usually easier to get through to. But nothing. Then on the Sunday she _had_ got a text, just one, from an unknown number -

 

“ _Gone back to parents. Thought it would mean home. This sucks. Can't contact again. Sorry. Miss you.”_

 

Something about it makes April's heart hurt; it could not read more like a cry for help if it had actually contained the word _help –_ she can practically see his fingers hovering over the keys of a strange phone (stolen? Borrowed from a parent furtively? Where's _his_ phone? Why can't he contact them? Or see them? Grounded again or worse – is there worse? And why did he text her, not Charlie?) - she can see him frowning, wondering whether or not to actually add the _help_ that feels so implicit in the words. She looks at those last two words for a long time, over thinking them maybe but unable not to. _Miss you_ must mean he _wants_ to see them – so why doesn't he just -? And does it just mean her, or all of them? Did he mean to come back sooner? To contact them before? It certainly didn't _sound_ like he was really leaving, not forever, not Charlie. Logical brain tells her not to get too involved, says it's not her fight, her heart cannot help but try.

 

But she has no idea _how_ to help, how to even try; she does not know where he lives and of course she didn't think to ask Quill like she should have. Besides, she can't just show up and actually the more she thinks about it the more angry she is with Matteusz than she would like to admit and for reasons that she quite _definitely_ will not admit. If only Tanya were here, or Ram – or even Quill again – but Quill has so much going on already, not to mention the baby April did not dare ask about and she did not volunteer information on. No, they're all broken, all of them, fractured, like points of a star rushing away from each other in six separate directions. If she could only pull the whole thing back together again into one perfect awkward shape. She suspects that it _has_ to be her but she is also wavering within her own state of being right now, her very idea of who she is now that she sometimes looks so much like something else. Ram could tell her, he could help, if only she even knew where he was. She is cursing him aloud yet again when the doorbell rings, and she opens it cautiously and it's Tanya.

 

“Oh my god!” she yells and grins and this is the best thing that has happened in over a week and she throws her arms around Tanya and Tanya squeezes back and Tanya is _happy –_ April can feel it and she's grinning so April's grinning too and sense of hope floods back into her like a dam breaking -

 

“Your mum?” she asks breathlessly, pulling Tanya inside and closing the door. Tanya almost dances on the spot -

 

“She's alive!” she beams, big eyed - “She's back! She came back on the TARDIS and – hell April I had to tell her _everything –_ I mean _everything_ but like – she met the Doctor and saw the ship so she kind of had to believe me. I think her head's a bit whack but she's back and she's good and – well she knows now and I think she'll let us do – you know – whatever it is that we do – I mean as long as I keep up the schoolwork too, she says -”

 

“God, tell me!” They sit down on the sofa, hands still clasped, staring at each other bright and alive - “Tell me _everything.”_

 

She suspects from how much Tanya bounces that she would have done anyway.

 

“So now I have this wishing box,” Tanya finishes - “And it's got one left and I – hell, I hope you agree but – I wanna give it to Charlie?” April is already nodding. “Because I was kind of a shit to him, and I still feel bad about that – like I asked him to _die_ for me, basically – and – I guess I kinda asked you to as well -”

 

April shrugs -

 

“You didn't mean it.”

 

“But I did. At the time. I did. I put my mum first without a thought and that was wrong. The Doctor told me -”

 

_(“Now you, Miss Adeola,” he said before the TARDIS opened its doors to her, after seeing her mum and Ram's dad out - “last time I saw you you seemed like a very clever – what's the phrase now - “woke?” young lady? Now I'm getting a tendency to kick ass, that I'm not sure I like.”_

 

“ _Yeah well. Shadowkin? And my mum died? And I had to learn to fight pretty fast?”_

 

“ _And that is all well and good, but don't let it stop you from being kind. I'm serious about this. I knew a girl once – not much older than you, could fight unlike anyone I ever knew and was still the kindest kid in the universe -”_

 

“ _It's different though? It must be – on different planets?”_

 

“ _She was from Perivale.”_

 

“ _I get it. Okay fine. Don't let the world make you hard, right?”_

 

“ _Right. You know Vonnegut stole that from me, right?”_

 

“ _Goodbye Doctor. Thank you.”)_

 

“So anyway,” she says now - “I can't exactly make up for all that. But I can at least give Charlie this? The Doctor said one person or a whole people – I mean maybe Quill will want to fight over it but I wasn't a jerk to Quill so – what do you think, will it help him?”

 

“God, I hope so.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

So April fills her in all all of it -

 

“But!” she finishes brightly - “You're back now! So I don't have to work it all out on my own. You're clever, what do we do?”

 

“We-ll -” Tanya says slowly, a crafty look creeping into her eyes - “My mum says she knows the Andrzejewskis a little and they attend the service at St-Jude's-on-the-Hill three times a week at morning mass.”

 

“Your mum goes to the same church?”

 

“Nah. She goes to a rival church. Much cooler. _Not_ the point.”

 

“So obviously she knows about members of the rival's congregation -”

 

“- probably better than the members know each other. Honestly rival church obsessions with each other are _insane._ Anyway – I heard they were seeking new musicians for the St Jude's Hymnist Band. Just _saying -”_

 

“I get it,” April begins to smile, her plan finally forming alongside Tanya's idea. She nods;

 

“And I'm on it.”

 

_x_

 

It's been a long time since April was in church, but she feels sure it did not used to be quite like this. Of course she is only half listening, grateful that her view from the musician's gallery has let her clock Matteusz within the first five minutes after playing the first piece. Interestingly about that, she seems to be struggling with the violin in a way she never used to, possibly because while she may see and feel herself as looking human, the violin does not, and holding it under her Shadowkin chin is more of a challenge than she had been prepared for. Also, the new body is larger than she looks like; she can see the strange looks and side-eyes from people as they sit at what looks like an awkward distance away from her. Not the point; she tries to focus on the task at hand.

 

Matteusz is sat second pew from the front on the left hand side, which is effectively the first row since nobody is sat in the first row. Attempts to make eye contact have been stunningly unsuccessful since he barely looks up the whole time and the little she can catch of his expression is a dangerous balance between incredibly neutral, angry and – scared? She cannot be entirely sure. He stands at all the right places but it looks brokenly mechanical and as far as she can tell he doesn't join in with any of the words.

 

In other news the homily is _bizarre._ At least she thinks it's bizarre; a rather fervent deacon stands in the pulpit foaming at the mouth about the End of Days and Coming of the Angels. A moment ago she heard something about “Brothels and abortion clinics on every street corner” and how “The time of cleansing is due” and now she's sure she just heard the words “Your virgin Mary Momma is descending and she is wearing combat boots!” and now it's all “Arrival of the Angels” and how “The Shepherds were right to be so sore afraid!” She cannot help but frown and wonder if it's always like this, if she is maybe going mad, if it's just this particular deacon or what. Still, she's more concerned with how to actually catch Matteusz on the way out. His parents seem to be watching him like a hawk; even sat right next to him they keep glancing over sternly as though he is about to do something scandalous in the middle of service, but he just looks sad and tired and more than half defeated. She closes her eyes and does it – she drops her violin. The resounding clatter sends all the heads in the congregation swivelling towards her which she _hates_ but she supposes she has to get used to people looking at her by now and yes, _thank god –_ and that's the first time this morning church has given her any opportunity to think that phrase – Matteusz sees her too. First he peers at her and she can see him mouth her name in a silent question and then he grins and it is like a burst of light through the clouds. _Please,_ she thinks, and if she looks like she is half praying it she supposes so much the better – _please let me help._

 

Thankfully they _do_ take their time in leaving at the end of the service and she can see Matteusz dragging his feet to give her time to catch up from above and as the crowds thin going down the hill through the graveyard she takes a deep breath, nods to herself and shouts -

 

“Matteusz!” in as polite a shout as she can manage. Like she suspected, they all turn to look at her and she beams, waves and smiles and calls “Hi!” in the most winsome way she can imagine, and then she holds her breath. She watches the parents confer for a moment and then nod and Matteusz, very carefully not hurrying, comes over to her, head hung to hide a smile. She slips a hand into his as though it's a date and they walk off through the tombstones a distance at which they cannot be heard. As soon as they are out of sight she takes her hand back -

 

“I am _so_ sorry about that,” she sighs - “And the – kind of flirting – I thought maybe -”

 

“You thought right.” Matteusz seems unable to stop smiling. “My parents – they are waiting at the gate and celebrating the chance that I may be “cured”.” He sighs. “It is good to see you. I would like to hug you, but it does not look I think so flirty, and they may see. Also how is your body?” He goes red - “That sounded bad out loud – I meant -”

 

“Oh I -” she didn't expect this; nobody has _actually_ asked her this, even though it's the biggest concern in her own life right now. She feels overwhelmed with fondness for him for asking, but if she started with that she'd never say what she was here to say - “I'm getting used to it – trying not to take the ring off much -” this is partly a lie and partly not, but she reassures herself with the fact that the _not_ part is a strong one; at any rate, it does not come off when she is around anyone else.

 

“I knew you would find a way to see me.” He nods, accepting the lie - “It's why I messaged you. My parents – they took my phone and aren't letting me out – is like last time with the grounding, only actual locked doors this time.”

 

“That's -” April swallows - “But that's terrible! You – can't you go somewhere else?”

 

“I cannot live forever in my cousin's car and -”

 

Oh _fuck it,_ April thinks, surprising herself but unwilling to dance around the subject -

 

“Charlie really needs you”.

 

Matteusz stares dully at the ground, scuffing at a root with his shoe; they've sat down side by side on one of the large square tombstones underneath the yew tree, left of the church.

 

“You have spoken?”

 

“Matteusz -” she says it gently but it's a sigh, a plea in her voice she cannot hide - “He won't speak to me. He won't speak to anyone. Quill's only just -” she stops. She was going to say _keeping him alive_ but it occurs to her that she cannot mention this, or any part of Charlie's suicide attempts; much as she wants her friends back together she cannot do it through a guilt trip or do anything that might later make Charlie feel like he has manipulated Matteusz into coming back. She bites her lip -

 

“He's no good without you, you know,” she finishes, hoping the cover up has gone unnoticed though Matteusz is looking at her closely now and she has to look away.

 

“I _know,”_ he says finally with a full shrug of the shoulders sigh. “And I -” he shakes his head - “All this. So much so fast, even without the aliens and people dying – did you ever stop to think that we're only seventeen? Is it right to feel so much so quick? To be so much to each other – I can't go back just because I have nowhere else to go, however much I love him.”

 

“So you do then?”

 

Matteusz scowls, looking at her like she's an idiot -

 

“Of course I do but – it's scary? Like this is it? Already? I was never scared to say it, but it's scary now to know that – and to know now -” he pauses searching for words that do the many thoughts and feelings justice - “I _can't_ not love him, and I cannot believe what my parents say about being too young and how it is not real anyway. Because it is the only thing that _does_ feel real. Three times – three times in church this week and every day all I hear is how God loves me even if I'm broken and how he only will show me what real love is and I hear the word love over and over and all I see is Charlie.”

 

“Then you're an idiot.”

 

“What?”

 

“You're an idiot,” April says again - “To love and to stay away? Matteusz, I – I wondered for ages whether or not I loved Ram, I was _afraid_ to love him, I was certainly afraid to say so – you were never like that and that's good. Of _course_ it's right. If you know you know, you can't stay away just because it's _scary_ that's – that's just like a man -” she stops, swallows - “Well I didn't mean that exactly. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be angry but -”

 

“But you have not heard from Ram either?” Matteusz says it so gently, patting her hand as it rests on the cold stone and she looks at him back with lost and sorry eyes.

 

“You're right. I'm projecting. God – I'm bad at this! Can I say _god_ here? Will I get – smited? Smote?”

 

Matteusz smiles, gives a short huff of a laugh -

 

“I do not think He exists to care.”

 

“And yet here you are.”

 

“My parents. They are not actually dragging me but they are dragging me. Who knew that after the _hurrah_ and the fatted calf came the locked doors and the threats of conversion therapy?”

 

It's April's turn to snort -

 

“Okay, don't use that reference at Charlie, you'll be all day explaining it. What?” Matteusz smiles and then in the next instant grimaces like she has stabbed him - “Oh god I'm sorry – what?”

 

“I -” he starts to say Charlie's name but chokes on it and it comes out silent and April is alarmed to see him start to cry, silently, like someone used to crying silently for fear of discovery and it hurts her chest all she can do is hug and hug tight.

 

“Do you know this feeling?” Matteusz says. “Like you have only half your heart in your chest and the rest is hurting for being gone?” He pulls out of the hug and winces hugely at his own stupidity - “Ah. Yes. I am sorry.”

 

“It's okay,” April shakes that one off - “You have to go back, you know. And there _are_ other places you could be. You mustn't think that you're only there because there's nowhere else.”

 

“But there is -”

 

“Shut up. If you want to you can live with me. My sofa is better than your locked doors and my mum wouldn't mind.”

 

“Thank you. Really. Thank you. I think I needed the offer of somewhere else to be to know there was nowhere else I wanted to be” Matteusz looks at her so gratefully she thinks it could kill her; this is harder than alien invasions by far - “You know,” he says - “I thought perhaps you were not really my friends. And then my parents every day are like _your friends are not really your friends_ which is making it easier to think this – and I thought maybe – maybe you did only put up with me for Charlie -”

 

“Oh please,” April grins and rolls her eyes - “Ram hardly even _likes_ Charlie -”

 

“Yes well he was ready to throw down with me.”

 

“That was the prisoner – also in Ram speak that means he rates you; god, don't boys know anything?”

 

“Huh – but -”

 

“And don't think I forgot who offered to dance with me at prom either. You're our friend Matteusz, and I'll call you an idiot again if you argue with me.”

 

“I would not dare.”

 

“So you'll come back to us?”

 

“If I have to tie together bedsheets and escape out my bedroom window like Disney princess – yes. And I may very well, so -”

 

“If you fall and break your neck you can blame me?”

 

“I will blame you. Thank you April.”

 

They stand, brushing leaves and lichen off of their clothes.

 

“Do I need to hold your hand again as we get on to the path?”

 

“Why not. Give my parents one last great _hallelujah, the boy is saved! He works for girls!”_

 

April shakes her head laughing, then she sighs.

 

“If only we could all be a group again. I just wish -”

 

“We can.”

 

“Oh mister I – was – ready – to give – up just half an hour ago, you're so sure now?”

 

“I might be.”

 

“If only that was true- but I think some things cannot be fixed.”

 

“You think so? See.”

 

She follows his gesture down the path to where Ram walks up towards them through the gravestones.

 

-x-

 

Matteusz leaves them before Ram can catch up to them, rather, as he explains, than have his parents think this is some sort of party in the church yard and Ram stops two metres from April staring at her awkwardly.

 

“Hi,” he says eventually.

 

“Hi,” she says, more shyly than she believed possible.

 

“Either something _really_ weird happened in my absence or you're holding hands with Matteusz out of some kind of very cunning ploy?”

 

There is a grin flickering around Ram's lips as he says this that makes her smile -

 

“Cunning ploy. Definitely.” He nods - “So – uh – you're back?”

 

“I'm back” he nods and she can see the fight to look chill rage inside him and fail - “I'm back and so's my dad!” he almost yells jubilantly- “Tanya told me everything and she said where I could find you and – you know about her mum and all that right?”

 

“I know. She came to see me too. Why do you keep looking around the place like that?”

 

Ram frowns -

 

“I don't quite know? I mean obviously I don't come here much – or like ever? But I've walked past a few times and doesn't this graveyard seem – I dunno – emptier to you?”

 

“What do you mean, emptier?”

 

“I dunno – like did there used to be more statues or something?”

 

She looks around – it does seem as though there are gaps where some of the statuary around the graves used to be but it's hard to tell.

 

“Hard to tell? But I mean maybe they're doing renovations? It's not like statues can just walk off – is it – oh god – _is_ it?”

 

“Things we've seen?” Ram shrugs - “We could ask Matteusz some time?”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I think – shit, I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but I think we all need to hang out some time?”

 

“I think so too. Once Charlie's speaking to anyone of course.”

 

“And I take it that's what you're working on here? How'd it go?”

 

“Watch this space? And you – will you speak to Charlie again?”

 

Ram swears a little, but he falls in beside her and they start walking down the hill, heading out the gate and along the path to April's house.

 

“He _killed_ you.”

 

“Yes but I told him to – I mean as good as.”

 

“I still _saw that,_ April – that's the thing isn't it? You can't just unsee things, sometimes I wish you could so hard I could have nicked that box off of Tanya.”

 

“But you didn't.”

 

“I'm not a total wanker.”

 

“I hate to tell you, Ram, but we do all know that.”

 

“Yeah well, don't shout about it. Anyway what about you April? You been so busy trying to fix anyone else you didn't stop to adjust to whatever the hell you look like with that ring off?”

“Oh Ram,” she smiles, and for the first time in a long time she feels it go all the way to her eyes - “I'm glad you're back.” She hugs him right there in front of her house and he holds onto her back, burying his face in her neck, smelling her hair -

 

“Damn. Good perception thingie. You _feel_ like you – you _smell_ like you -”

 

“I _am_ me, you pillock. But there's the thing -” she bites her lip nervously, looks down and then looks back up at him - “Ram can I – will you come in with me and let me take something off in front of you?”

 

“What kind of guy would I be if I ever said no to that?”

 

__x__

 

“That's it!” Quill shouts to an empty room later that same evening - “Fuck this lack of noise, I am _done!_ Come on you!” She scoops the baby up from the floor where it is currently resembling a gangly kitten playing with a ball of wool that she is pretending she did not know how it got hold of.

 

“We're going to go rescue the Polish princess, oh yes we are. Rescue or bloody kidnap, either way -”

 

The child growls at her, turns into a small toothy dog and tugs at the edge of her skirt.

 

“No. No. We are _not_ playing bite chunks out of mummy. Be a good kitten now and come with.”

 

It turns into a large capybara and stares at her sullenly.

 

“I'll put you in the room with the smelly crying teenage boy again.” She glares at it sternly. It turns back into a kitten.

 

“Good kitty”.

 

She thrusts it into an increasingly more ingenious baby carrier and stomps out the door.

 

It is eleven o' clock at night when she reaches Matteusz' house, and the lights are out. It occurs to Quill for the first time that she does not have an actual plan here, and while she stands dithering at the front gate a very large rucksack sails out of a top floor window, landing barely feet away from where she stands.

 

“Fuck!” she shrieks. Matteusz's face appears at the window, apologetic and then confused -

 

“Sorry! So sorry! - Miss Quill?”

 

“What are you trying to do? Kill pedestrians? Is it that bad in there?”

 

“I have been locked in with no key and no phone and my parents are thinking about sending me to torture – I mean conversion camp, so now I am hurling myself from a window in an escape attempt that may break all of my limbs. Yes, it is pretty bad. Why are _you_ here?”

 

She shakes her head beneath this torrent of loudly whispered words -

 

“Actually I came to get you – we need you, though that may have lessened since you TRIED TO KILL ME!”

 

“Please do not shout Miss Quill – parents.”

 

“Oh I'll kill them for you. It's fiiiiine.”

 

“Please do not. They are bad but do not.”

 

“Quill kill their parents whether they're good or bad – why do these wankers need to live?”

 

“Do not say _wankers_ about my parents.”

 

“Sodding tosspot wankers. Are you coming down or not?”

 

Matteusz closes his eyes and eases a leg out the window.

 

“I'm _not_ gonna catch you if you look like falling and dying,” Quill sighs in a manner which states quite clearly that this is exactly what she will do.

 

“Is fine -” Matteusz huffs, easing more limbs out of the window - “If I die, I can blame April.”

 

“For god's sake, just hold on to the edge of the window by your fingers and let yourself drop into the small bush?”

 

“Thank you, I had not thought of that.”

 

“Don't you get sarcastic with me, young man, you'll lose.”

 

“I am hanging from a quite high window now, I think I am allowed some last sarcasm before I die.”

 

“Just drop yourself, for shit sake!”

 

“Okay. Okay. Here goes.”

 

Matteusz closes his eyes, braces himself and lets go. Quill is surprised to find herself holding her breath and praying for a soft landing. Matteusz yells, drops onto both feet and then stumbles, the small bush having been perhaps a bad idea after all. Quill helps him up from the floor, bewildered at herself for being reduced to this. Matteusz yells for a moment in what she assumes is a string of curse words. Lights come on inside, and they hear voices.

 

“Shit,” he adds, staring at her for a second and picking up his bag - “Run!”

 

They run.

 

“Why are we running?”

 

“Because -” panting - “My parents may decide that metaphorical dragging me places is not enough and some actual dragging is a good idea.”

 

“Great. Are they particularly large?”

 

“Not especially.”

 

“So -” she skids to a halt - “You're telling me I've led armies into battle and now I'm running from a short angry Polish man? Is that really what's happening here?”

 

“That is – what is happening here, yes.”

 

“Well this is a new low.”

 

“I think we are safe now. Not that I am not pleased, Miss Quill, but why are you here?”

 

“I _came_ to persuade you to leave. But clearly you got there on your own, better late than never.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I'm sick to death of mopping up after Charlie? Because all that crying is getting on my nerves? Because I have better things to do than stopping idiot kids throwing themselves off of buildings – oh _shit.”_

 

Matteusz stares at her, all the colour drained out of his face and for a minute there it feels as though his heart has stopped too -

 

“Stopping – what now?”

 

“Yeah, I should not have said that. Moving on.”

 

“I stayed away too long,” Matteusz looks stricken.

 

“Yeah no shit, Watson. Come on.”

 

For a moment he simply stands there as though frozen with a new wave of horrors he did not think could exist after so much that was impossible to fight. Quill looks at him with something that borders strangely close to sympathy and like she did with Charlie she reaches out her hand in a gesture of compassion, but drops it, unsure, and just says very softly -

 

“Come along. Come home, Matteusz.”

 

“ _Home,”_ he whispers, as though he has just worked it out.

 

“Strange but yes,” Quill nods, and he starts to walk and she starts to walk alongside.

 

“Sherlock,” he says a few minutes later.

 

“What?”

 

“Expression – it is _no shit Sherlock._ I do not know for why. But you were close.”

 

“Brilliant. Good to know everything's sorted then.”

 

He wonders if he will ever be able to say that he has missed her but does not suspect it any more than her saying the same.

 

-x-

 

Charlie's room is in darkness, only the street lamps throwing any sight or shape across the room. There is a lump under the covers that can only be Charlie, and a shape under a sheet near the bedroom door that Matteusz stubs his toe on walking in. He suspects it is the Cabinet because of course, Quill will have given it back to him, and he will not have wanted to look at it. Sometimes Matteusz feels like he is inside Charlie's head he can imagine what he has thought so clearly.

 

It hardly looks like Charlie's room as he remembers it; it's a mess, the computer switched off, all of Charlie's clothes on the floor and some of his still from weeks ago, and as Quill did not hesitate to tell him, yes, it definitely smells pungent in here. He turns the lamp on rather than startle with the main light.

 

Inside his bed sheet nest, Charlie stirs at the noise and the sudden slight light seeping through.

 

“Bugger off -” he grumbles wearily, burrowing his head down further. Matteusz drops lightly onto the side of the bed, touching the lump gently somewhere he thinks might be Charlie's shoulder.

 

“I will not,” he says.

 

Charlie stiffens, then goes very still; then he slowly brings his head up out from under the duvet, uncurling his tightly clenched limbs a little -

 

“Matteusz?” he whispers it, voice rough and now aching with a barely believing hope - “You're here?”

 

“I'm here.”

 

A thousand expressions seem to cross Charlie's face in the dim light, foremost among them hope, happiness, sadness and the most immense need and his lip trembles, his face crumples and Matteusz' heart breaks into a thousand pieces and he feels all of it too and he pushes the duvet aside almost angrily to crawl under it and gather Charlie into his arms as Charlie clings to him and cries, shaking with it like a storm in one small body and Matteusz is crying too and it feels wonderful. They cry, they cry and they cry, relief and happiness and apology and hurt and relief again until finally it runs down, Matteusz finding voice first to say -

 

“Charlie, my Charlie, I'm sorry, I am so sorry.”

 

“Sorry?” Charlie croaks out - “Why?”

 

“You need water. Wait.”

 

“I think Quill left some -”

 

Matteusz finds it on the desk, pours Charlie a glass, makes him sit up and drink it; Charlie drinks it so fast he almost chokes.

 

“You have not been drinking properly?”

 

“Probably not. And I think I might be hungry.”

 

“Oh Charlie. You should look after yourself better, you know.”

 

“I didn't want – I wanted to – you were _gone -”_ his forehead crumples up as though this should explain everything - “I thought you were never coming back.”

 

“I never should have left. That is why I'm sorry. I promised to love you today and when it was tomorrow I was not there to make that promise again. Charlie -” Matteusz swallows hard and pours Charlie more water - “Tell me it is not too late to promise you this again?”

 

“You're _here,”_ Charlie says again - “It's not too late. You didn't -” he frowns - “Do you mean you stopped loving me?”

 

“Never,” Matteusz has to hold onto him again for the very thought of losing him - “not for a single second and now I am afraid for you -”

 

“You're sure it's _for_ this time?”

 

“Yes. Very sure. I thought that it was the worst thing – to ever be afraid of you but being afraid for you – this is so much worse, afraid you will hurt yourself or worse – afraid you will come to harm in any way and worse if I am not there to fight for you.”

 

“You would fight for me?”

 

“Isn't this the scariest thing of all? Yes, I would fight for you, I would die for you, I think now I would kill for you – to know this – maybe I am too young to know this but I know it all the same. This is what it is to be afraid for someone – to be afraid of yourself, because you would do anything for them. Charlie – I judged you unfairly. I should not have judged at all – we none of us had to make the choices you did; how would I have done? I do not know, I have been all week thinking about it when my parents said I should have been thinking on my sins, all of that blah blah blah – what sins? If they meant you, then fuck - let me sin again?”

 

“You – went home?”

 

“And of this horror we will speak another time. I would have come back sooner, but who knew one could be more grounded than grounded? Besides – I _am_ home - even Miss Quill says.”

 

“You spoke to Quill?”

 

“Just tonight. A daring escape we can both tell you about later. Charlie can I – when I came to stay before it was because I had nowhere else yes, but this time – can I stay because of you and only because of you?”

 

“Didn't you before?”

 

“Yes. But I did not know it. I thought I had to go home, to see if I could make it work with my parents but I cannot, and I think – that this is okay? My family is wrong for me and I choose this one – if you will have me? I will ask this of Quill too.” He bites his lip, frowning. “I will ask her this in different words and with less _I love you.”_

 

Charlie laughs, it is a strange sound, and papery, like a laugh from someone very old who has forgotten how.

 

“Kiss me?” he says - “This time – even if Quill yells or aliens happen.”

 

Matteusz smiles, and Charlie closes his eyes for the kiss but not for long, opening them again in delight to be able to see that this is real, that Matteusz is here and he can smell and taste and see and feel him and this has never been only a physical need but that need has always been there and it rises again now so hungrily he can barely believe it, barely believe how quickly he can start to feel better again and for the first time it feels like he can get through and everything will be good again and he is moving against Matteusz with hungry lips and hands that seem to move on their own with all the tingling. And Matteusz kisses back, hands in his hair, fingers stroking down his neck, shoulder, unbuttoning him with fingers that shake for wanting and Charlie knows he is shaking too and that Matteusz is wearing too many clothes and they have to be closer, so much closer and skin to skin is barely enough when they reach it and they are both groaning with need and whimpering, breath hot on each other's skin and he turns around, never losing contact and when Matteusz is inside him he cannot help but think and feel what it is to be unbroken, fixed, however cliché it might sound he thinks _this, this is how we're meant to be_ and they are dazzling, perfect, crying out and flying.

 

Afterwards he lies with his head on Matteusz's chest, listening to that heartbeat, the most important heartbeat in the world, and hoping with everything he has that this is his to keep this time.

 

“There's so much to talk about,” he says dreamily. “So much we need to -”

 

“Yes” Matteusz replies. “But for now, let me just love you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And tell me I can stay, because this was nice, more than nice, but it is not answering my question.”

 

“And if I want you to stay forever?”

 

Matteusz smiles, kisses Charlie's head -

 

“Then it's forever.”

 

-x-

 

In the room next door Quill smiles, looks at the sleeping child – and it is now a child, growing at a typical rate for a Quill – they never stay small for long, too vulnerable that way. The boy is lying in a dark ball on one side of the bed half asleep, just opening his eyes to peep at her, and for just a brief moment one eye is a dazzling gold and the other a glittering blue, and she experiences a feeling in her chest no Quill has been in a position to experience before. Like cramp but more stabbing. _Oh shit,_ she thinks. _I love him – is it a him? Well I love them anyway._ The more she thinks this the more she realises it has to be true, though she has no basis for comparison. _He's going to be deadly,_ she thinks - _and I love him. This is terror, this love, this is war itself._

 

“Ballon,” she says aloud, nodding to herself, nodding to him. “For your father, that's your name.”

 

 _Family_ she thinks, wonderingly, looking at him, trying not to listen to the noises from the next room – _is this what it means?_

 

_-x-_

 

“Charlie?” sleepily.

 

“Mmm?” just as sleepily.

 

“Have you maybe – washed – or changed clothes – bedsheets since I was gone?”

 

“Umf. Why do you ask?”

 

“No reason kochanie, no reason.”

 

___x___

 

**Some notes: The world the Doctor took Tanya too is from the EDA novel “Grimm Reality” and the companion who got in trouble with some stepsisters and a wishing box was Anji Kapoor. Honestly read it, it's wild. Also I am sorry for the lack of any particular plot (again!) this episode – season one just left soooo much that needed fixed! Next episode will start in on the actual proper plots!**

 

**It's true about rival churches, at least very much in my experience. Also the “your momma wears combat boots” and all the rest of was part of a genuine homily given by a rather bonkers catholic deacon at the church I went to many years ago. Also yes foreshadowing, I hope all whovians noticed :-)**

 

**Also the Quill – Matteusz scene went way sillier than I initially had planned. This is because when I stopped to think about the situation Matteusz was in it started to feel really dark and I got hecka depressed. I am not making light of religious tolerance and conversion therapy is so gross I can't even – i've only made Matteusz treat it lightly because I feel like this and sardonic humour are his coping mechanisms. Also this ep was really starting to need a little comedy.**

 

**Next week! - Ballon makes mischief. Quill attempts parenting. April wonders why all the good ones are gay and the gang go for ice cream; not to mention what would _your_ first thought be if there were suddenly two Charlies in the room?**

 

 


	3. CHAPTER 3: THE FORMS WE WEAR

 

**Epsiode 3: The Forms We Wear**

  * _**We should, like, all actually meet up.**_



  * _**OK.**_



  * _**I'm down**_

  * _**Same**_

  * _**Matteusz?**_

  * _**Still no phone. He says yes though.**_

  * _**Great!**_

  * _**Actually he says I have to say he yelled YAAAS and fist punched the air.**_

  * _**Thanks for that.**_

  * _**So like, what do we do?**_

  * _**What**_ **don't** ** _we do? Anyone notice that we're young and it's summer holidays?_**

  * _**Huh. Thanks Tanya, I'd like, forgotten I was young?**_

  * _**Shut up Ram.**_

  * _**People! Be nice!**_

  * _**Actually, I've been googling What Young People Normally Do In School Holidays and -**_

  * _**Yeah cause there's nothing weird about that.**_

  * _**Shut up, Ram.**_

  * _**April, you're like right next to me – you don't actually have to text that.**_

  * _**Shut up Ram.**_

  * _**Yeah shut up Ram.**_

  * _**Can I also tell Ram to shut up?**_

  * _**No. Piss off, nerd.**_

  * _**Does that mean we're friends? I'm still struggling with human bonding techniques.**_

  * _**Mate, if you ever say bonding to me again I will slap your books into next week!**_

  * _**So! I say bowling!**_

  * _**No - ice cream date!**_

  * _**Fairly sure I cannot bowl?**_

  * _**I'm ace.**_

  * _**Definitely not bowling then. Ice cream? That new place on my corner? Tomorrow at 2?**_

  * _**Sorted!**_

  * _**Date!**_

  * _**I am – in?**_

  * _**Is that how you say it? In?**_

  * _**Shut up, Charlie.**_

  * _**Um – you shut up?**_

  * _**Lol. Can I PM you?**_

  * _**I don't know – what is it?**_

  * _**Private message you tosspot – come on!**_

  * _**Ah. Yes then. Tanya you may absolutely PM me.**_




 

 

  * _**Can I come see you before we go out? Like maybe 1?**_

  * _**Sure, is everything OK?**_

  * _**Yeah, I just need to give you something.**_

  * _**OK!**_




 

  * _**Charlie!**_

  * _**Hi April**_

  * _**Can I come see you before we go out – I was thinking about 1 ish?**_

  * _**Umm – can you make it 12? Tanya wants me at 1?**_

  * _**Okay. Your house?**_

  * _**Looking forward to seeing you.**_




 

“I really have been looking forward to seeing you, you know,” Charlie says, opening the door to April almost shyly; she steps in, also almost shyly.

 

“Me too.” She smiles, then looks down - “Aww, you got a dog? When did that happen? Can I pet it?”

 

“Umm – I wouldn't – he's – unpredictable -”

 

The dog turns into a goat and looks at her hopefully.

 

“Ah,” April says - “I see.”

 

“Do you want to come upstairs? Quill and Ballon have taken over the living room a bit lately -”

 

“Blame him!” yells Quill, wearily, from the sofa. “Nothing to do with me!”

 

“This is Quill's child?”

 

“You get used to him.”

 

“You bloody don't!” Quill adds.

 

“Upstairs,” April nods. “Definitely”.

 

The goat watches them truculently as they slip past.

 

After everything Quill has said, April is relieved to see that Charlie's room is now a more or less pleasant state for a teenage boy's – at any rate nothing smells bad and clothes across the floor are at a sensible minimum. Charlie gestures for her to take a seat on the edge of the bed -

 

“Budge up Matteusz, you don't need the _whole_ bed.”

 

“Yes, you make this strange claim at night also,” grumbles Matteusz happily, shifting over, book in hand.

 

“He is like a star fish,” Charlie shrugs at April. “I get limbs in my face. Tea?”

 

“I'll make.” Matteusz bounces off the bed so they can both sit down.

 

“We have our own kettle now – 'cause some days Quill seems to live in the kitchen, and that way we can disturb her less.”

 

April nods; she had been going to ask if they were alright – or better at least, but it's pleasingly clear to see that they are. She asks anyway. For a moment she and Charlie look at each other awkwardly.

 

“So you're – doing better?”

 

“I think _better_ is relative?”

 

Charlie goes quiet thinking about the nightmares, the frequent waves of guilt and loss and the passing of all hope for his people. He's not sure he can explain to April quite how and how hard it all hits him sometimes, how the guilt of being alive can eat him up even when he knows now that there is enough to live for not to try and end it any more. However many times he had tried to convince himself and the rest of them that he had no hope, dream or idea of being a hero to his people he _had-_ but it feels ridiculous to admit to feeling a crushing sense of hopelessness on account of not having any chance left for heroism.

 

“I get that.”

 

He takes a deep breath and tries anyway -

 

“I suppose I'm still very hung up on not having been able to save anyone? I know that makes me sound like a big jerk with a hero complex – but I'm – I'm ashamed to say I did hope it -”

 

“It is not to be ashamed of,” Matteusz says gently, brushing his hand as he gives him his tea and goes to sit at the desk.

 

“And you saved _me,”_ April points out. “That's something.”

 

“I did?”

 

She tells him what the Doctor told her and though Charlie looks like he finds it hard to take in he visibly brightens all the same.

 

“Charlie – I – I wanted to talk to you about something -”

 

“And all I've done is talk about me. I'm – sorry.”

 

“I asked.” She shrugs and takes a deep breath, because this is never easy to bring up - “Back when we were first friends I asked you if you had always looked like you do now and you said yes – you lied, didn't you?” She says this very fast.

 

“He told you that?” Matteusz raises his eyebrows.

 

“He told you the truth then? I always knew you were lying. It just didn't matter at the time.”

 

“But it matters now, because you look different too?” Charlie nods - “I think I understand; and I'm sorry I lied to you – yes we had different forms Quill and I – the Doctor has a thing called a Chameleon Arch. It can re-wire your DNA and make you look human. These bodies – the ones we have now – they're sort of human equivalents to what we looked like back -” it occurs to him quite suddenly that _home_ is no longer the right word, “- on Rhodia,” he finishes.

 

“How did you _deal_ with it?” April sighs - “How can you be who you were when you look like something else?”

 

“I am not sure I understand -” Matteusz says - “You can look like you always have whenever you want to, right?”

 

“Yes but – I _know_ that – but it feels fake a lot of the time? Like I'm hiding? Doesn't it – feel like that for you as well?”

 

Charlie nods.

 

“It did at first. It felt like a prison – Quill used to grumble all the time, saying it felt like that for her as well – in fact really Quill might be better to talk to about this – I think it was harder for her than me -”

 

“How come?”

 

“Two things – I think? One – I never found this body particularly objectionable, all the more when -”

 

“It is really not objectionable.”

 

“Yes, I was getting to that – especially when I've been lucky enough to have someone close who is always telling me how unobjectionable it is.”

 

“Beautiful in fact,” Matteusz interjects; Charlie goes a little pink;

 

“So I think – I got used to this body because – and I'm sorry about getting too graphic – but because there was someone else to discover it with me? Which, I suppose brings me to the second thing, which is that – unlike Quill – I wasn't grown up when the change occurred? And bodies change all the time – at least at this time of our lives; it's almost constant? You have to get used to it or you go mad -”

 

“This is also true if you are only ever human,” Matteusz shrugs.

 

“So basically what you're saying is I should try and have sex with someone in Shadowkin form?”

 

“I don't think I said anything about sex, as such -”

 

“It was a bit implied -”

 

“Look it's not -”

 

“Ugh -” April grunts in frustration at trying to make them understand, and in that frustration she takes off the ring with a sharp yank. If Charlie and Matteusz are shocked by what looks like the sudden appearance of Corakinus in their bedroom they both – albeit with effort – make a wonderful job of not reacting.

 

“See?” April sighs - “It's not like I can go around like _this_ though is it? Least of all find anyone who'd have sex with it!”

 

“You don't have to -”

 

But she puts the ring back on anyway.

 

“Ok Matteusz – question -”

 

“Ready.”

 

“If Charlie looked Rhodian – I mean I don't know what that looks like -”

 

“I do. He drew a picture. It was very detailed. Purple. Kind of – bumpy.”

 

“Right,” she nods. “Really? Purple? Anyway. Would you still fancy him?”

 

“Mmm,” Matteusz nods to himself thoughtfully - “I have thought about this.”

 

“You have?” Charlie asks.

 

“Yes. When you told me – and I thought what would my love be if it was entirely based on what you looked like. It was easy to know I would still love you -”

 

“But that's not what I -”

 

“That is not what you asked April, no. But the answer is yes. Of course. Because I do not want you for how you look, no matter how beautiful you are – it is for who you are and that does not change. So yes, even though Ram would call it “kink” - I would.”

 

“Hum,” April says nodding, deep in thought. “But Ram.”

 

“Yes,” Charlie agrees. “I think he's the one you need to talk to.”

 

“I _know,_ ” she sighs - “But -”

 

“No buts,” Matteusz shakes his head at her. “You have to talk. If you cannot communicate then you cannot do anything. Also it is almost one o'clock, and I think Tanya will be here soon to see Charlie?”

 

Charlie nods. April is envious. It feels silly to be envious just of a glance and a nod but she wonders how they _do_ it – how do they manage both to always communicate their feelings and problems and yet also so often seem to not need to talk at all? She wishes her brain would stop being internet – trivial – simply yelling _Goals!_ at her and let her really think about it.

 

“April, can I walk you to the ice cream parlour?” Matteusz actually offers her his arm and she cannot help but smile. _Why,_ she thinks for the millionth time, though she knows it's a rhetorical question and that the answer has a lot to do with toxic masculinity and heteronormativity – _why are all the best ones gay?_

 

-x-

 

“Oh god, another one!” Quill yells, as Tanya comes in just as April and Matteusz are leaving - “Does it never end?”

 

“If it helps,” Tanya shrugs, “we're all heading out soon, so peace and quiet in about a half hour or so yeah? Oh my god who is _that?”_

 

“Hi,” says the teenage boy on the sofa; he looks about her age, her skin colour with long braided hair and glittering eyes and Tanya is embarrassed to find herself suddenly feel incredibly tongue tied and silly. He gets up and holds out a hand - “Tanya, is it?”

 

Tanya giggles, she actually _giggles,_ and is so flustered and annoyed with herself that for a moment she hides her hand behind her back instead of shaking.

 

“Oh shit, yeah,” she amends, finally remembering what to do and shaking hands. The boy has the most bright and dazzling smile she has ever seen, there's almost glitter in it.

 

“Stop that,” Quill says to him sternly. “Tanya – Ballon – Ballon – Tanya. Do not go there, you're like two weeks old.”

 

“Er – I'm fourteen? I'm old enough to -”

 

“ _He's_ two weeks old, you pineapple. Quill grow fast, but even so do _not –_ either of you. I'm telling you. Don't you have a Prince to torment?”

 

“Oh. Yeah.” Tanya swallows hard, remembering why she came - “I'll be seeing you then.” This last is directed just at the boy.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees, raising an eyebrow at her - “see you.”

 

“Don't fall for it!” Quill yells up the stairs at her back - “Next time you see him he'll be a over – sized horny toad or something.”

 

“Aww mummm -” she hears just before she knocks on Charlie's door - “Don't say _horny.”_

 

“Hi,” Tanya says. Charlie stands up from the bed.

 

“Hi.” They look at each other awkwardly, _last time I saw you I asked you to die for me_ hanging heavy in the air between them.

 

“So er -” Tanya starts - “Quill's son is – kinda hot?”

 

“Really? Since when? What did he look like?”

 

“About my age? Really really pretty? Like, he's living with you and you hadn't noticed?”

 

“Huh – he's – never done that before? Last time I saw him he was hanging from the ceiling in the latest krillitane form so – no, not really _hot.”_

 

“Kay, I don't know what that is but – oh yeah – shape shifter?”

 

“We're all still working it out,” Charlie shrugs, then quickly while he's still speaking - “Tanya I'm sorry, I'm sorry for every -”

 

“No. Hell no.” Tanya stops him - “ _I'm_ sorry? Like I basically told you and April you could go die. If anyone gets to apologise it's me.”

 

“I -” Charlie isn't quite sure what to say and he never likes that - “I mean I was ready to? I -”

 

“I noticed. I don't think I can be sorry enough and I – Charlie, I really don't want you to die, okay? April told me – like what happened with Quill and that, and please don't die?”

 

“I'm working on it.” They smile at each other shyly for a second.

 

“Oh, come here you airbag,” Tanya pulls him into a huge hug.

 

“Airbag – in a friendly way?” Charlie manages to squeak out through the hug.

 

“You know it.”

 

Eventually Tanya lets him go and they sit back down on the side of the bed.

 

“So I don't know really how to do this,” Tanya says - “And I don't think _sorry_ covers like your whole people – and Quill's – but I have something. I wanted to give you it straight away, but like you weren't talking to anyone and I didn't wanna give you it in front of everyone cause I think this is a serious case of they'd all want one -”

 

She takes a very small, very plain cedarwood box out of her pocket, golden sweet smelling wood; Charlie stares at it curiously.

 

“It's how I got my mum back,” Tanya explains before he can ask. “And Ram's dad. I went on an adventure with the Doctor to get it – anyway -”

 

Charlie smiles to see how wide eyed and breathless she goes when talking about travelling with the Doctor. He finds himself actually nodding with understanding, remembering what that was like.

 

“It's a wishing box,” Tanya says finally. “It has like, one wish left now? The Doctor told me to use it wisely but there's nothing else I need – he said you can use it for one person or to bring back a whole people but you can't do two people or peoples and nothing in between? It's very specific and there's a certain way you have to say the words but I thought – well it's up to you, but if you wanted to you could bring back -”

 

“Everyone.” Charlie's eyes are wide, staring at the box in breathless wonder. Suddenly it seems too enormous for him to just take it.

 

“But not Quill's people too.”

 

“Why give it to me?” he asks, still looking at the box with hungry eyes that Tanya cannot help but think look like the eyes of a very small child - “Why not Quill?”

 

“Cause I wasn't a dick to Quill? Also I guess now there's another Quill out there? Or another half Quill anyway.”

 

“I have people too, now.” Charlie cannot believe he is hearing himself argue this further, he really isn't sure quite why he is.

 

“Yeah well. You don't have to do anything right away? Take some time to decide, yeah. Just you know – know that whatever you do – it's good, right?”

 

“I -” Charlie looks down at the box she has thrust into his hands as though it is a bomb that might go off. He's not even sure he really wants it, or wants to have to make a decision like this ever ever again but it means a lot that she has given him it, and he finds that this makes him happy – happier perhaps than the box itself - “ - Thank you,” he finishes lamely, fighting a strong urge to offer her a bow.

 

“C'mon!” Tanya slaps him on the arm - “Ice cream! Let's go do something normal for once, yeah?”

 

Charlie smiles, puts the box in a drawer and offers her his arm. Tanya rolls her eyes but she takes it anyway. On the way out the door they both turn in surprise at a voice that sounds strangely like Quill's but more masculine -

 

“Where are you going? Can I come?”

 

Tanya looks at Charlie, realising that if it was up to her she'd say yes. Charlie frowns at the boy, trying to work him out and then trying to work out how to say no kindly. Luckily Quill rescues him -

“No you cannot. You're still two weeks old and I'm not trusting you with them. Besides, they have _bonding_ to do or something.”

 

“What's bonding?”

 

“I'll tell you when you're older. Go! Get out of here, both of you!”

 

They head out quickly, Charlie relieved, Tanya finding herself oddly disappointed.

 

-x-

 

“You know for a posh bastard, you're dead rude?”

 

“What do you mean rude?” Charlie looks hurt, though it's clear from Ram's voice he does not mean it over harshly.

 

“Like to staff and that. You didn't say _thank you_ and I don't know that I've _ever_ heard you say _please.”_

 

“It is true,” Matteusz nods gently - “You do not say _please o_ ften – except in very specific circumstances that we do not talk about in front of our friends.” He shoots Charlie a warning waggle of the eyebrows which makes Charlie smile though he is still frowning.

 

“I dislike saying please,” he nods. “It's true. It feels – _wrong_ for a prince? Humiliating. But I will say thank you more often if it is rude not to.”

 

“Bell – end,” Ram says, though April is pleased to hear that it sounds affectionate as she comes back to the table having ordered her second ice cream.

 

“Also,” Ram is on a roll and cannot resist teasing Charlie which April finds rather heart warming and is almost certain is a Ram show of affection - “You do know that sugar is made from badger jizz, right?”

 

“What?”

 

“Sugar. Like you just chucked all over your waffles. Badger jizz. It's true.”

 

“That's -” Charlie pushes his waffles away gingerly - “I think that may be rather disgusting? How do they even -?”

 

“You do not know about the badger sperm factories?” Matteusz shoots Ram a conspiratorial glance and Ram nods at him to go on - “Oh yes,” Matteusz leans back confidently. “Large factories. Much of the English export system is based around this. Many people employed to spend their days in milking the many badgers -”

 

“Milking the -? That's a euphemism right? April, why are you laughing?”

 

“Yeah, god April,” Ram groans, though in a second they are all laughing; it really is impossible to look at Charlie's earnest confused face and not.

 

“It's just sugar, kochanie.” Matteusz pats him on the shoulder. “From plants. No badgers hurt in the making of.”

 

“Oh,” Charlie takes back his waffles - “Thank goodness.” He eats some waffle, then stops and glares at them all - “I hate you all? You know – in a friendly way.”

 

“This is amazing,” Tanya says through a mouth of ice cream and jelly babies - “Like us, hanging out? _Not_ talking about aliens. We deserve this.”

 

April raises her teacup -

 

“We do,” she nods. “To us!”

 

“Is that _tea?”_

 

“Shush Ram. To us!”

 

“To us!”

 

-x-

 

Tanya smiles as she stands outside the ice cream parlour for a moment, watching the others go; Charlie and Matteusz in one direction, April and Ram in the other. It's nice, she thinks, seeing everyone happy and them all being together for once; it might actually be the friend group she has been quietly not daring to hope for since the beginning and she's pleased for the others that for once they all seem happy in their partnerships though sometimes, even if it's selfish, she cannot help feeling a little left out. Couples seem to have all these unspoken cues and in – jokes and unspoken dialogues that nobody else can hear, Charlie and Matteusz especially sometimes seem so linked as to be almost reading each other's thoughts and she cannot help but want that too. Still, she doesn't need to remind herself that she's younger than them; the knowledge isn't something that ever leaves her. She smiles, shrugs and sets off.

 

“Tanya!” She turns, surprised to see Ram running after her.

 

“Shouldn't you be with April?”

 

“She's okay. I felt bad about about you going home on your own. You wanna hand?”

 

“Do I …..want a hand getting home? I mean that's sweet but – like – weird?”

 

“Is that a no?” Ram looks ridiculously disappointed. She has to laugh.

 

“Nah. I mean fine, sure, thanks.”

 

“So,” Ram falls into step next to her - “You good? Everything kinda quiet right now yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” she frowns - “You complaining?”

 

“Nah. Nah it's great. You just – for a moment there – when we headed off I thought you looked – sad?”

 

“Me?” She shakes her head, shrugs - “No, really. I'm cool. Really, really cool, tell you the truth.”

 

“Cause I thought maybe you felt kinda left out when we all coupled off in different directions.”

 

“Oh no. Course not. It's good to see you all getting on.”

 

“You're so kind, Tanya.”

 

She snorts.

 

“I think you're confusing me with April.”

 

“No really. I mean I think you play tough – I mean you are tough, but you're kinder than you want to be. It's cool.”

 

“Yeah whatever.”

 

Ram laughs -

 

“You know. Sometimes you really sound like Quill.”

 

“ _Quill?”_

 

“Yeah – is that – bad?”

 

“Have you _met_ Quill?”

 

“You don't like her then?”

 

“No I mean – you're right. She really not that bad. She was actually so sweet to me when I thought my mum had died – almost too sweet and then well – yeah okay I _do_ like Quill, what about it?”

 

“No,” Ram is smiling from ear to ear - “No it's good. I mean it's great. So you're not – you don't mind being on your own then?”

 

“Really random swinging back round of the subject there.”

 

“Yeah, I'm working that out.”

 

“What do you mean you're -” Tanya walks in silence for a little while thinking, wondering why Ram is being so weird and rapidly coming to a very bizarre conclusion which, the more she thinks about it does not seem to be so bizarre at all.

 

“How's your leg?” she asks suddenly.

 

“My – leg?”

 

“Yeah, your leg – you know – you were having some trouble with it at first?”

 

“Oh it's fine y'know, great – thanks for asking?” Ram frowns at her, patting his hand against his leg, his _left_ leg.

 

“Yeah,” Tanya nods. “Thought so,” she adds, cryptically - “Well this is my street. See you round?”

 

“Kay.” Ram leans in for a hug she does not allow, just nods and heads off down the street.

 

Which is _not_ her street.

 

-x-

 

“Night, Ram,” April says awkwardly at her front gate. It's been awkward she thinks; ever since she took the ring off in front of him and however hard he tried he just _couldn't_ act normally around her and even though her logical brain can understand this completely the rest of her – and it's buried deep but it's a _lot_ of rest of her – is hurt by it.

 

“Night”. He wishes – and he has been wishing ever since she took the ring off – that he could have been cooler about it. He curses himself at least once every few seconds that he cannot seem to do it. Which is ridiculous. Isn't he good at being cool? Isn't that what he does? He sighs. Maybe that was what the old Ram Singh was good at but he's not sure this new one is good at anything. He _hates_ the new Ram Singh, the only thing good about it is April and that seems to be falling away from him fast. He knows he should have tried to shrug it off, to tell her it's okay, that he can deal with her like this, he wants it to be true, to be able to say _nah it's cool you're still April –_ because she _is._ But it _does_ seem to matter and he cannot lie and claim otherwise when he cannot for the life of him imagine spending any real length of time with April in what he supposes is now her _real_ body.

 

Still he feels like a bum as he walks away, but he has not got far before he hears her call out his name and he turns and she's stood in front of the gate where he said goodbye.

 

“We should talk,” she says.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees.

 

April stands very still, looking at him curiously, and he cannot work out what she is curious about to save his life. There is something wrong with the way she is standing and he cannot stop frowning at her. Then he shrugs.

 

“Look I'm sorry -” he begins, struggling to meet her eyes. Then he sees it. She isn't wearing the ring.

 

“Where's the ring?”

 

“What ring?”

 

“You know -”

 

“Oh yeah – I took it off.”

 

He stares at her for a long moment and he does not know what it says about how used he has become to everything being weird these days that his first thought is not _oh my god she's cured!_ But _okay – that's not April._

 

“So -” he says and he amends how harsh he had been about to be just in case it _is_ April - “You just _took off_ a – what was it – perception filter thingummy?”

 

“Ah,” April says, and then - “Oh,” and then “Fuck,” and runs off down the street at full tilt.

 

“April!” he yells after her, wanting to start running but for some reason his legs – maybe it's the alien one – has a sense that he does not and the running never starts - “April!” he yells again instead.

 

“Ram?” April comes running out the front door and down to the gate. “What's the matter?”

 

He stares at her, then stares at the figure now fading down the street -

 

“But you – you just – that was – what the fu – I think – and I know this is getting old – but I think something weird's going on?”

 

April sighs. Of course it is.

 

“Come on,” she says – taking his hand - “Come in? I mean we need to talk anyway don't we?”

 

He lets her lead him. He rather suspects he always will.

 

-x-

 

“A wishing box?” Matteusz asks, only half incredulous - “Really? Like in the stories?”

 

“What stories?”

 

“Many stories. Fairy tales. There is always a wishing box, or a lamp or something – you get three wishes. Usually in the story they are not the right wishes or they get messed up somehow -”

 

“Hmm,” Charlie nods, opening the front door. “That's what I'm afraid of -”

 

“Have you seen Ballon?” Quill pounces almost as soon as they walk in - “He went out and hasn't come back.”

 

“You _lost_ him?” Charlie raises an eyebrow in the way Quill particularly hates.

 

“Do you know how hard it is to keep an eye on that kid? At any time he could turn into a sentient carpet and wiggle down the hall and out the door. I _think_ he's in a strop because he wanted to go out with you lot and now he's gone for a walk and hasn't come back -”

 

“How long ago?”

 

“Forty minutes and counting.”

 

“That is not so long,” Matteusz says calmly, patting her on the shoulder awkwardly - “Do not be worrying yet, Miss Quill.”

 

“Who said anything about worrying? I was just _asking_ because if you're implying I'm some sort of neurotic parent you're very much mistaken – I've been reading about parenting and I think you'll find -”

 

“There's no need to get so defensive!”

 

“I AM NOT BEING DEFENSIVE!” Quill shrieks this out.

 

“She says defensively and with a defensive expression.”

 

“Oh shut up, Prince -”

 

“Yes hush Charlie. Miss Quill sit down, I will make you a cup of tea.”

 

“God! You bloody British, is that all you ever think about? Tea? Here you're having a crisis, have a cup of tea! Broken your leg? Cup of tea – ah I see you're dead, how about a nice cup of -”

 

“I am Polish,” Matteusz says calmly, patting her again.

 

“Oh _shut up!”_

 

“I'm going to shower,” Charlie sighs, kissing Matteusz on the cheek as he moves about the kitchen -

 

“Come up when you've pacified the neurotic Quill?”

 

“I AM NOT NEUROTIC!” Quill screeches as he makes his way up the stairs, laughing quietly.

 

By the time Matteusz makes it upstairs Charlie is lying flat across the bed in his pyjamas, chin rested on on hand and looking at his phone. He looks up as Matteusz comes in -

 

“Everything alright?”

 

“I think I have successfully convinced her that forty minutes is not long and to Keep Calm and Carry On,” Matteusz sighs, sitting on the side of the bed and running a hand down Charlie's back.

 

“I do not think this has made her any less convinced of my burgeoning Britishness,” he adds with a sigh.

 

“She does love to over – react,” Charlie sighs, almost fondly - “Ignore her.”

 

“We share a house Charlie, I cannot just -”

 

“Who are you talking to?” Charlie says, walking into the room, also in pyjamas. He does an almost comedic double take and at the same time Matteusz leaps up from the side of the bed, staring at Charlie and then staring across at Charlie.

 

“What?” he yelps, both Charlies echoing the sentiment in quick succession, Charlie on the bed also leaping up and staring at the Charlie who has just walked in.

 

Matteusz cannot stop looking from one to the other, mouth open, unsure of what to say or do -

 

“Two of you?” he splutters eventually - “How are there two of you?”

 

“Obviously -” Charlie from the bed says - “He's a fake.”

 

“ _I'm_ a fake? I was in the shower – I _said_ I was going to shower – Matteusz -”

 

“Oh please, I don't take that long in the shower – Matteusz tell him, then make him go away -”

 

“Matteusz it's me! Make _him_ go away!”

 

“Woah woah woah stop!” Matteusz holds up his hands - “This is – one of you is not Charlie – please, I am still getting my head around this part -”

 

He cannot help but feel like he is being very slow but the truth is, though he's not sure if he can or ever will be able to admit it – that his first thought on seeing two Charlies in the room was so frankly unrepeatable that he feels guilty for having had it before all sensible sensations of alarm and confusion actually took over.

 

“If one of you is not Charlie – which must be true – then who are you?” he looks from one to the other.

 

“ _I_ don't know,” says the first Charlie.

 

“Quill's son obviously” says the second. This does not help Matteusz, he is honestly not sure which of these things Charlie would say.

 

“Okay. Okay,” he tries again - “Why did it take me so long to get my head around their being two of you?” He thinks, obviously _his_ Charlie will be the one who knows him the best and has no problem saying this as well as knowing it.

 

“You were thinking about having sex with two of us at once” Both of them say in almost unison and then glare at each other. Then they look back at Matteusz -

 

“I love you,” they both say, together again.

 

“You can't have him,” one says to the other.

 

“No _you_ can't have him, he's mine.”

 

“No – mine!”

 

“Mine!”

 

“Mine!”

 

“Shut up!” Matteusz yells - “Shut up, both of you. I am not property of anyone and you are both behaving like idiot children!”

 

He bites his lip, thinking hard.

 

“Okay. When we had that fight – it was our first big one – when you posted that picture of me online and I was really really mad and I left you alone in the school hall – which I should not have done because I already knew you were sorry, and I am sorry – what were you thinking?”

 

“I was sad,” says the first Charlie - “But I knew we'd be able to work it out and you'd be back. I sat there thinking what to do first – how to say I was sorry.”

 

“I thought it was the end of the world,” says the other Charlie - “I thought I'd lost you, and I couldn't see a future without you. I hoped that I could find the right words to say I was sorry and that you would accept them but I thought I'd really really messed up and I didn't deserve you to and-”

 

“Charlie -” Matteusz smiles, crossing the room and taking his face in his hands, stroking his cheeks, marvelling for the millionth time at how small and precious that face feels in his hands - “Hush Charlie it's alright, I _know_ how sorry you were, you don't have to be upset again -” Charlie presses his face without even thinking it into Matteusz's hand, and Matteusz pulls him close and kisses the top of his cradled head, wondering how he could ever have struggled to tell them apart.

 

“Oh bollocks,” says fake Charlie, watching them and sounding suddenly rather like Quill, at which point the doorbell rings, they all hear footsteps on the stairs and Tanya runs in with Quill behind her.

 

“Matteusz be careful!” Tanya yells - “One of them isn't Charlie!” She looks between them, from the Charlie backing slowly out of Matteusz's arms and looking slightly shocked by all the commotion to the one who stands smirking to one side.

 

“.....which of course you already worked out,” she nods. Yeah. You – sorry Charlie -” she marches past him into the room, grabs Ballon by the shirt and starts to drag him bodily out of the room behind her - “You and I need to talk, pal”.

 

In her wake Charlie and Matteusz look at each other, shrug in almost perfect unison and close the door behind her.

 

Out in the corridor Ballon extricates himself from Tanya's grasp and stops looking like Charlie. He grins at Tanya in the most dazzling and winning manner.

 

“Don't start!” Tanya groans.

 

“You have some explaining to do, young man!” Quill adds.

 

“Yeah and to me first.” Tanya crosses her arms across her chest in that way that makes even Quill back off - “What the hell are you up to pretending to be us?”

 

Ballon sighs and looks down at his feet, shuffling guiltily -

 

“I just – I wanted to hang out with you guys and _she_ -” glaring at Quill - “Wouldn't let me.”

 

“Miaow, says the cat's mother. You know I liked you better when you _were_ a kitten?”

 

“And later I'll tell you why that's not a cool thing to tell your kid,” Tanya snaps at her. “But for now _you –_ need to hear this! Right, I am very happy to be friends with people – I don't exactly have an overflowing contacts list, right? But you don't get to be my friend by lying to me and using someone else's face to find out if I'm into you? Okay? People don't do that. It's not cool.”

 

“I didn't lie -”

 

“Shut up, yeah you did. You pretended to be someone who was already my friend to find out stuff about how I thought – that's lying and it's creepy and I'm like fourteen years older than you _anyway,_ you get it? Doesn't matter how pretty you are that's not cool, yeah?”

 

“Doesthatmeanwecanstillbefriends?”

 

“Maybe? When I've actually talked to you and worked out if I like you or not and right now there's some making up to do mate. Who else did you pretend to be eh?”

 

“Charlie,” Ballon confesses, mumbling - “But you know that and uh – your friend April – but only for about a minute!”

 

“ _Why_ though?”

 

“I been watching you all and well – I thought – you all looked so happy together and I'm like – nobody else I know is like me? But I thought – none of you are like each other and yet you all seem to _like_ each other – it's a good thing what you've got and I – I'd like in? If I may?”

 

“Oh my god,” Tanya mutters half to herself but no longer angry - “I think I'm officially cool! I don't know -” she turns back to Ballon - “but one thing I do know is that it takes time? You can't just be in because you ask – not after what you pulled for sure. But maybe? Right now I got to go call April -” she arches an eyebrow at him - “You know why. Bye, Miss Quill.”

 

Left alone in the corridor, Quill stares at her son and he stares stubbornly at the carpet.

 

“Yeah you know I think she covered it,” Quill shrugs. “C'mon -” she cocks a head towards the door beside them. “It'll be punishment enough if we hang around outside _this_ room much longer. Trust me.”

 

-x-

 

“That was Tanya,” April says, putting her phone down. “Quill's son, he's a shape shifter.”

 

“Oh,” Ram says - “Right; course. Why didn't I just guess that straight away?” He gives an awkward laugh that he immediately feels like a dick about. This also seems to be a lot of the new Ram; feeling like a dick like eighty percent of the time. It doesn't help that he is sat on the edge of April's bed holding on to one of her velvety – plush cushion things like it's a cuddly toy.

 

“Remember when you said that we had to adjust to a new normal?” he says, looking at the cushion, not her. She makes a noise that he takes for yes - “ _How?”_ squeezes the cushion tensely - “How _do_ you though?”

 

“I suppose I've had to adjust to enough new normals before,” April shrugs. “Haven't we all?”

 

“That's the thing isn't it? I _didn't._ Before Rachel died, before everything – got – I dunno – _weird –_ I always considered myself pretty normal, stressed sometimes I guess, but I gave myself most of that cause I knew what I was good at and I wanted to do well – but now I'm _not_ normal and I – I don't wanna say this the way it's gonna sound -”

 

“Just say it that way.”

 

“Right,” he nods - “Right okay – but remember that you told me to – like you all were weird already? Time was I thought that was a bad thing – but what it means is like – well what you just said – you've all had to adjust to these big changes – you and Tanya and Matteusz – all of you've been – I dunno – _uprooted –_ like before any of the weird shit even happened? Tanya changed classes, Matteusz moved country and you – you know about you and then Charlie too – I mean he's just _always_ been weird? I'm not saying any of this very well -”

 

“No,” April shrugs - “You're not. Doesn't matter though. It's true and you don't even -”

 

“I _don't_ even mean it as mean no, like I really don't? I've been being kinda rotten – to all of you – one way or another and I think it was because I didn't want to admit that I was as weird as the rest of you – I mean I keep saying weird but what I mean is fucked up? Oh shit no that doesn't sound better – I mean you've all been through shit, you knew how to go through shit before the shit started getting -” he makes a vague huge gesture with his hands - “This big? Like in a way because you'd all already had to deal with crap it makes you all stronger than me? And that's why I've been such a dick because I don't like being weak and next to you all – you _losers –_ that's what I would have said – I'm like – well I'm the loser aren't I? What the hell do I do with that?”

 

“What do you want to do with that?”

 

“Better,” Ram nods, more to himself than to April. “I want to do better?” He looks up at her helplessly; she comes and sits beside him and puts her hands over his on top of the cushion. She smiles, thinking about how much she wanted to pour everything out to him, how she had thought that was the goal – what was needed to fix them, but she realises now how wrong she was. She's done this before, like he just said, and really not as badly as he thinks he has said it. So she does not tell him that there _is_ no getting better at this, that really they _don't_ have the advantage at dealing that he thinks they do because there _is_ no way to deal with these things, and that all things are different to all people and blah blah blah because it doesn't matter and right now perhaps it is not even true. No she didn't need to tell him her insecurities, he has always needed to tell her his and it's good, it's better. She knows well enough that one can only come to these outpourings, these truths, on one's own, that that is the only way you can really understand the facts and yourself.

 

“April -” he looks at her with those big eyes and she wonders how she ever felt like they were slipping apart - “I wanna do something and it's like the exact opposite of your classic romantic gesture but can I -”

 

He holds up her hand, the one with the ring, and swallows hard, and she feels her heart get maybe a hundred tons lighter and cannot believe how breathless she is. She's not sure she could be more so if he went down on one knee and she nods and nods like her head might fall off. And he slides the ring off her finger and she feels like this might actually be the most romantic moment of her life and Ram holds the ring in his palm and reaches up with his other hand to touch her face and -

 

“April?” he says.

 

“Yes,” she nods.

 

And it _is_ all that matters; he had been so sure it would not be, that it could not possibly be.

 

“That's alright then,” he says, and he kisses her.

 

_____x______

 

 

 

**Next week on Class: Charlie learns the dangers of stopping to sniff the flowers, nice is most definitely different than good, Quill's in a butterfly net and Matteusz has got a gun and he's not afraid to use it. (Actually he's very afraid to use it but that's not stopping him, shhh spoilers).**


	4. Chapter 4

 

**Episode 4: Never Letting Go**

 

There is a small portable heater in the disused fireplace that throws a warm golden glow across the room, weaving shadows in and out of the dimmed lighting and throwing out a warmth like real flame. It's the kind of glow that makes you smile when it touches the skin, and the warmth and the amber of the light are like a blanket under which two people can easily imagine the rest of the world does not for the moment exist. Or maybe, Matteusz thinks, it exists more within the circle of this glow than at any other time because the person in here with you for this moment _is_ the world. He shifts to move one arm, which is starting to bake, away from the bars of the heater and put his other arm in place, and Charlie shifts at the movement, lazily, turning his head and smiling at him. He falls in love again and smiles back.

 

“Will you tell me what you're thinking?” Charlie always says it this way nowadays, after he went through a two week long obsession with the question _what are you thinking?_ to the point where Matteusz had to gently tell him that sometimes his thoughts were his own and he did not have to be always answering this question. Just now he feels so full and happy he is not sure there is an answer good enough, close enough to the truth to be put into words – _I was thinking that this might be the happiest I have ever been in my life, I was thinking how beautiful you were in this light, how you are like a song written in gold and warmth, I was watching the light and shadow on your skin and it was making me die for love and how your skin is so soft and so perfect it makes me want to cry, I was thinking some time you will have to move and go to the bathroom but upstairs seems so far and please do not go away not ever -_

 

“Happiness,” he says, dreamily - “I think altogether it comes down to – I was thinking happiness and maybe this is it? You are sure Miss Quill is not just going to suddenly walk in?”

 

“Uff.” Charlie blows a strand of hair out of his eyes, and there it is again,. That thing the heart does that makes Matteusz wonder every time if it will break, this time for being too full - “You always say the word _Quill_ at the worst of times.”

 

“I disagree,” Matteusz shrugs, and he is suddenly smiling that smile that Charlie has come to know means he is about to say something that will make him laugh - “ten minutes ago would have been a _much_ worse time.”

 

“And if you ever actually yell Quill's name instead of mine at a moment like that, it will be the last moment of its kind.” Charlie rolls onto his back like a cat in the sunshine, reaching for kisses and touches with little boy arms and big eyes that still seem to doubt his own luck. _How_ Matteusz thinks _can you not kiss a Charlie like that?_ And how does he still feel like this? So in need, so head over feet in these waves of bright desire that crash and crash and crash as though they've still known each other weeks but it's new every time, kissing, touching, everything, like it's the first time except with knowing what feels best. It feels almost wrong to love like this, so giddily, when surely they should have started feeling sensible by now – except that there is nothing here that has ever felt wrong, not for a moment. Charlie shivers, a long, warm, unwinding kind of shiver, a whimper made with the whole body as Matteusz runs very light fingers down his arm and he cannot help but lean in hungrily and he feels privileged because this it the Charlie nobody else gets to see; soft, open, tactile, not afraid to say please or admit to any weakness. Almost a year now and sometimes he still seems as starved for contact as the first time they touched, only now a lot of it is because he knows how much he wants it, likes it, needs it, even if he can never quite drop the innate idea he grew up with that it was a trivial, frankly unnecessary thing to ask for. Rhodians do not hug, he said, or kiss or show affection, even towards their children, and he told Matteusz once – half guiltily – that he always felt like a a freak, even on his own planet, for wanting these things.

 

“Have I told you today how beautiful you are?”

 

Charlie smiles -

 

“Not for the last twenty minute at least.”

 

“Then I am telling you now.” Kiss.

 

“Did you mean it?” Charlie says, suddenly, as though he has been thinking for a while - “When you told April you'd still think I was beautiful if I looked – like I used to look?”

 

“Yes. Do you miss it?”

 

“What? How I used to look?”

 

“Yes. Do you ever feel – like April said – like to not know yourself – or like it is hiding to look human?”

 

“I did at first.” Charlie, settles back into Matteusz's arms, his back against his chest, in the curve into which he seems to fit. “At first it felt like something I was wearing, not something that was me – but it's not so bad, this body -”

 

“I am forced to agree”. Smiling.

 

“And I think I've felt more good sensations in this skin in less than a year than in my whole previous life. Sometimes I think -”

 

He goes quiet and Matteusz can feel the faint thrum of unspoken distress.

 

“What?”

 

“No I can't. It makes me sound appalling.”

 

“It does not.”

 

“You don't know what I'm going to say.”

 

“I think I do.”

 

“Sometimes -” Charlie takes a deep breath; after all he decided a long time ago not to keep anything he was thinking from Matteusz because if it _was_ so awful Matteusz would leave him for it, he supposes he probably deserves to be left - “Sometimes I'm glad that everything has happened the way it has happened. Because if my planet hadn't been destroyed I would never have come here -”

 

He turns his head, showing eyes that beg forgiveness for this - “I'd never have met you – I don't know if me now would even like who I would have been without that. I'd have had to marry who my parents chose for me and any objection I'd have had would be irrelevant – I – I promise I'm not saying I'm glad it's all gone but -” he sighs and looks away - “I'm terrible – aren't I?”

 

“No,” Matteusz is not sure why he is so certain he is right in saying _no_ he just knows that he is and pulls Charlie closer. “You are not.”

 

-x-

 

“Are you nervous?” Tanya asks April over Skype.

 

“Usually.”

 

“I mean about school.”

 

“Oh yeah, that.”

 

“I feel like we should all be here, tonight, making like a plan of attack tomorrow.”

 

“Quill said she had to go somewhere with Ballon and that Charlie and Matteusz weren't to be disturbed for the night.”

 

“- yeah I _really_ want to make a non childish comment about that, but – hey, how come you and Ram aren't doing the same?”

 

“Probably because Ram _is_ nervous.”

 

“I am _not,”_ Ram's face shoves largely into view. “Hi Tanya.”

 

“You _are._ I know I am. Like it's been such a quiet summer? Feels like we just I dunno – got granted this as a gift before it all goes weird again, and after all it is the school that's the bunghole itself.”

 

“Y'know, I think most people say that about their school.”

 

“Except, in our case -”

 

“Yeah. Yeah I know. Well I guess we'll – what was it you said April? Just have to be ready and prepared for whatever comes. I mean – haven't we faced the worst already?”

 

“Aww jesus, Ram, you don't say that! Haven't you watched a horror movie ever?”

 

“Is that what we're in?” April sounds genuinely interested - “I mean if our lives were a movie, is that the right genre?”

 

“I'd say more Sci Fi,” says Tanya.

 

“Yeah, and god knows what Charlie and Matteusz are filming right now.”

 

“And I thought _I_ was the kid here? What about exams, though? I mean April, you're working on your uni application aren't you?”

 

“Kinda. Gotta admit all the alien stuff has at least made me less worried about final exams.”

 

“It's not me,” Ram mutters.

 

“I vote we get through this first term first?”

 

“Plan.”

 

-x-

 

“So did you find what you were looking for?”

 

“No. Apparently the whole _other Lore on Earth_ thing was a lie after all,” Quill shrugs - “Should have known but thanks for asking. Good night last night?”

 

Charlie blushes, glances at Matteusz who looks studiously down at the lunch he's packing for them.

 

“Really good actually, we -”

 

“Enough information!” Quill stops him with a hand up. “God, I didn't _actually_ want to know. Get a grip!”

 

“But -”

 

“Do you want to be late for school on the first day? Because I _can_ put you both in detention already.”

 

“Do _you_ want to be?”

 

All three of them swear and run most of the way to school together, Ballon shouting _CAN I COME?_ from the doorway.

 

-x-

 

“And the army assembles.” Quill meets the group on the stairs as she goes past in the lunch break - “Bit like going back into a war zone isn't it?”

 

“I wasn't scared until you started being friendly.”

 

“Hush Charlie, she's been nice to you all summer.”

 

“God, don't _tell_ people!” Quill grumbles.

 

“We do seem to have survived the first half a day,” Tanya nods - “Everyone else?”

 

“So far so good. Anyone seen the new headmaster?”

 

“I'm on it,” Quill nods - “Robot, I'm almost sure. I don't think the governors are wasting resources on hiring humans any more.”

 

“Yeah, what's with them anyway?”

 

“Articulately asked, Mr. Singh. That's our number one challenge, isn't it?”

 

“Ever Upward Reach,” Matteusz nods, staring unseeing at his half a sandwich as though deep in thought.

 

“What?”

 

“What?”

 

“The Governors,” Quill rolls her eyes at them. “What they call themselves- don't any of you have _eyes?_ How did _you_ know?”

 

“On the mysterious door by the south stairs, the one nobody can break into – it says Ever Upward Reach,” Matteusz says. “last year – we waited there some time for Miss Ames.”

 

“What happened to her anyway?” April asks.

 

“Probably dead,” Ram shrugs.

 

“No great loss.” Quill agrees.

 

“ _Ever Upward Reach,”_ Charlie echoes thoughtfully.

 

“Sounds sinister,” April nods.

 

“Sounds religious,” Matteusz agrees - “Like religious organisation.”

 

“Speaking of which,” Ram remembers - “Been meaning to ask you mate – your local church lacking in statues?”

 

“I thought that!” Matteusz nods - “Also the sermons have got very strange. I mean they were always hellfire and all the brimstone but when I was having to go over the summer it was very – apocalyptic? Very ominous – and the iconography is becoming – I do not know? There is something strange -”

 

“I know what's strange -” Ram nods seriously. They all look at him - “Yeah. It's strange how you know words like _iconography_ but sometimes your sentence structure is the pits? What's that about?”

 

“Grammar is hard,” Matteusz shrugs. “How is your Polish?”

 

“Touché.”

 

“You know, I don't think I've ever actually heard someone say _touché?”_ Tanya raises an eyebrow.

 

“I never thought I'd bloody say it,” Ram groans - “Hanging out with you losers is rubbing off on me.”

 

“That's my cue to get out before one of you makes a sex joke,” Quill sighs, stomping off muttering about the Earth being doomed.

 

-x-

 

Three days later, and on the Thursday they come into school, all of them, almost relaxed about how non – dramatic everything has been so far.

 

“Aww pretty!” April brushes the flowers in a vase on Quill's desk - “I didn't know you liked flowers, Miss Quill?”

 

“I don't,” Quill snaps, glaring at them like they've offended her. “Wasn't me. Must be some over – enthusiastic cleaner.”

 

“There were some in in the sociology rooms as well,” Tanya slips into her seat. “And in reception on the way in. They smell kinda strong.”

 

“Hmmm -” Quill finds herself glaring suspiciously at the flowers, small, red and very delicate, not like anything she has seen before -

 

“I think they smell nice?” Charlie comes in behind April, leaning in closer to the vase.

 

\- not like anything she has seen before _on Earth -_

 

“Charlie – don't -!” She jumps up in sudden alarm, sweeping the vase away from him with a brush of her arm, crashing flowers and vase onto the floor, the smell suddenly wafting up overwhelmingly and there's an itch under Quill's skin and she remembers, doubling over in pain, peering through streaming eyes at Charlie who has also doubled up -

 

“Vrinursian Narcissi -” she coughs, feeling her throat move disgustingly. “The spores of which -” she clutches the desk, April and Ram running round to hold her up, Matteusz and Tanya doing the same for Charlie - “The spores of which when ingested cause any living thing that has changed form to revert to the body they were born with – _shit!”_ she shrieks as the quills burst through her skin and Charlie stares at his hands in horror as they turn purple and they are all surrounded by screaming and running as the rest of the physics class beats a hasty retreat.

 

As the change sets in, Quill shrieks a sound which starts off as “Fuuuuuu -” but with the change completed becomes a series of snarling sounds and sharp clacking noises before she swallows them back.

 

“Shit,” she says, very precisely. “Hard to - talk human - with a - Quill larynx – Prince?”

 

Charlie stares at her, stares around at all of them through heavily black rimmed eyes, opening his mouth a few times before the words come out right.

 

“It's – hard – yes – _fuck!”_

 

“Now everyone's staring at you because they never heard you say _fuck_ before,” Quill says archly in Rhodian.

 

“I really don't think that's why they're staring.” Charlie stares at her in shock and then around at the faces of the others, panicked eyes settling on Matteusz.

 

“I'm sorry,” he says in awkward English - “I'm sorry I can't -”

 

Before any of them can stop him Charlie runs out the room, ignoring all of Quill's shouts for him to stop.

 

“Go after him!” she snaps at Matteusz - “Tell him he can't just be running around the school looking like an alien because first the screaming and shouting then the hitting with sticks and calling of UNIT!”

 

Matteusz nods, fast and frightened – more frightened for Charlie, Quill thinks than he was even concerned about the change of appearance – and runs out the room as well.

 

“Meanwhile, you lot -” it occurs to Quill that with this return to form seems to come a more natural ability to command troops - _return to form_ indeed, she thinks - “Help get me out of here without attracting even _more_ attention?”

 

-x-

 

Finding Charlie proves even easier than Matteusz thought it would; he does not even have to follow the scattering and screaming school children – though as per usual Coal Hill the screaming is not so much _Oh my god what IS that?_ as _oh here we go again._ He simply sticks a head into every deserted classroom and store cupboard heading away from the science room. They got good at seeking these sorts of places out in the early weeks before Charlie got up the courage and language to actually invite Matteusz home after school, not to mention – as he later admitted – having to get over a vague concern that Quill might actually do him some harm, which proved utterly unfounded – surprisingly so to Charlie, less so to Matteusz. Back then empty classrooms and store cupboards were a frequent port of call and he finds Charlie in the first cupboard, hiding himself down in as small a huddle as he can manage amongst the cleaning supplies, looking miserable and afraid, more so than the screaming kids.

 

Matteusz knows better than to try and talk to Charlie when he makes himself this small and still. Charlie can do still like nobody else, he told them once that he had been trained since he was two to sit as still, quiet and poised as possible, and however much being human may have relaxed him – and it has to a degree – he still reverts frequently to a level of stillness, though not in this case poise, that would have been disturbing on anyone else. Matteusz simply does what he always does; sits close, puts a hand on his knee and looks at him steadily until Charlie notices him looking. It never takes that long any more, apparently the notice and attention is all he really needs and more, he said once, than his parents ever let him expect.

 

“It's fine,” he says, looking up after a few minutes and nodding. “This is fine – I'm alright really -”

 

“You are not.”

 

“No, I -” he sighs, defeated. “Why can't you just let me say I'm fine – I _will_ be if you just don't -”

 

“No, you will not. What you will do is continue to say you are fine until you start to cry.”

 

“That's not -” Charlie drops his head - “That is true. Oh dear. I'm sorry.”

 

Matteusz shakes his head.

 

“Do not. You do not have to be.”

 

It should be strange, he thinks, hearing Charlie's voice come out of something that looks so alien but somehow it just confirms to him that he can live with this Charlie, it makes looking at him curiously easier rather than harder.

 

“You can't possibly want to look at me like this.”

 

Matteusz makes a huffing sound.

 

“You are ridiculous and frankly quite rude.”

 

“Rude? How am I -”

 

“I tell you this – so recently it is like a plot point – that I do not care what you look like, that I would still love you, still want you – and yet straight away you say this as though you never listened to me?”

 

“Yes but – it's different -”

 

“How?”

 

“Well – when you said that it wasn't exactly in anticipation of it ever happening.”

 

“I did not say it just to amuse my face either.”

 

“Oh.” Charlie frowns, the expression crumples his whole face dramatically. Matteusz reaches out with a curious hand -

 

“Can I?”

 

“Huh -” Matteusz strokes Charlie's cheek and the curious curves of his neck - “Yes. Still you. Didn't you miss it?”

 

“Miss what?”

 

“Looking like this?”

 

“Not for a long time. It's like I said to April – I got used to the new body – I think – I mean – it feels like it became me? I don't know if this will last – but I hope I can get that body back? Don't you?”

 

“Hmm,” Mateusz shrugs. “If you are purple you are purple. Already when you are embarrassed you go red. I will live.”

 

“You are -” Charlie clasps the hand that still rests against his face, dropping his forehead to press against Matteusz's forehead - “Really quite the human.”

 

“I know. Come on -” Matteusz stays like this a moment before nodding and taking Charlie's hand - “Let's go find the others.”

 

At which point they exit the closet and walk out into the hall, where an enormous, glittering gold wire butterfly net appears as if from nowhere, scooping Charlie up and snatching him out of Matteusz's grasp before either of them have any idea what has happened. The net drags him on the end of a long hissing wire out of the school, and disappears. Matteusz runs.

 

-x-

 

“The effects don't last _that_ long,” Quill says, quickly, as the others hurry her out of the school front doors under cover of coats - “Only an hour or so – but long enough for anyone interested to see any and all hidden aliens in the school. Best we clear out and wait for it to pass and then -”

 

\- at which point an enormous glittering wire butterfly net scoops her up. She struggles instantly, throwing herself onto the floor to make the drag harder and the others grab hold of her feet as she fights. It feels like something is trying to reel her in and the force of the drag is too strong to fight, but the resistance they all put up closes a gap between Quill and her captor and as the wire reels in she finds herself back on her feet, face to face with an ugly, eye-patched man with a long black coat and a stun gun pointed straight at her.

 

“Oh I might have bloody known,” she spits. “Alien bounty hunter,” she hisses quickly at the others. “Find the prince. Protect him. He won't last five minutes. GO!” she yells when none of them move and they still find themselves utterly unable to move.

 

“Fighter, is it?” The man grins through broken teeth.

 

“Damn and I hoped I was coming across more like a delicate Traaken princess.”

 

“I've met Traaken princesses.” The man spits to one side - “Lost me my eye.” He speaks into a a comm link on his wrist -

 

“Two crates. One small, one fortified. Four minutes.”

 

“Black market?” Quill raises an eyebrow, trying to outstare the man into giving something away - “Alien slave auction? Who's paying you? Thanks for the flowers, but not my colour.”

 

“What flowers?” For a moment the man looks genuinely puzzled, then observes Quill struggling violently but unsuccessfully to kick him in the groin, shrugs and speaks back into the comm - “Get her out of here – and the other one.”

 

“Why are you all still here?” Quill yells - “Lore are great trackers. Get on it!”

 

The net binding Quill shimmers and lurches and she is yanked at an impossible speed out of view; the bounty hunter presses something on his wrist and disappears.

 

“Shit!” yells Ram

 

“Now what?” says Tanya

 

“What did she mean about _Lore?”_

 

“What did _he_ mean _other one?”_

 

At which point Matteusz runs towards them panting and the only word he can get out is -

 

“Charlie.”

 

“Great big butterfly net?”

 

Nodding.

 

“Quill too. Alien bounty hunter.” They quickly fill him in, all talking at once. When they finish Matteusz looks up, the breath returning to his lungs but with it a feeling so icy he can almost hear it cracking.

 

“Crates?” he says, eyebrows raising. It is the last expression he makes before his face feels as though it is freezing into an expressionless mask.

 

“That's what he said -” April frowns – Matteusz are you -”

 

“They have Charlie in a crate,” he says in a voice so unlike his own that it stops April dead _(- in the cramped dark of that tiny space -)_. He starts to walk away from them all without another word.

 

“Oh!” Tanya says - “The Lore – she means Ballon! We should get him – trackers - she said he could – and that means he can find where they've taken her and Charlie – he's still at the house, right Matteusz? _Matteusz?”_

 

But Matteusz is already running _(-he must be so scared -)._ Looking at each other and shrugging, the others start running too.

 

-x-

 

Matteusz lets April take the front door key from him only because when he reaches for the lock his hands are shaking so badly he can hardly hold the key. April watches him carefully as she takes it from him, trying to ask him with her eyes if he is alright, but he gives her nothing, face locked tight and she cannot help but find it terrifying.

 

“How long do you suppose the effects last?” Tanya asks.

 

“She said not long,” Ram shrugs, then has a thought. “Hey April – take your ring off.”

 

“What?” April turns around on the verge of opening the door, frowning at Ram - “I don't think now is the -”

 

“It's important, April trust me.”

 

She does not stop frowning but she takes the ring off. She does not change.

 

“Oh,” she nods - “I see.”

 

“Yeah,” says Ram - “Thought so. That's how we find out how long the effects last.”

 

“ _Door,”_ snaps Matteusz.

 

_(-he won't know what's happening, he'll just know he cannot breathe, panicking, so alone, god so alone, so scared, so so scared -)_

 

April opens it, looking at him with worried eyes.

 

“Everything al -” Ballon jumps up from the sofa when they come in, excited to see them for maybe two seconds before he gets worried - “What's happened?”

 

“It's your -” it sounds weird but Tanya says it anyway - “It's your mum and Charlie. They've been taken by an alien bounty hunter. Can you track where they've taken them?”

 

“Shit,” Ballon nods, “but yeah, easy, okay, let me just – hey mum's gonna kick your ass if you go in her room -”

 

Matteusz ignores him and strides straight past.

 

_(- like the walls are closing in and the panic and the fear like -)_

 

“- and she'll really go nuts if you go in _there -”_

 

“Where?” the others trail after them.

 

“Weapons cabinet. They keep it locked these days, double lock, mum has the key and Charlie knows the combination, you can't just -”

 

Matteusz stares at the drawer for a beat before giving it a shockingly savage tug, _( - like dying but it's not but he won't know that with the brain fogging and the tightness in the chest - )_ breaking the hinges and taking out Quill's gun as though this is normal, looking at it in his hand without a flicker of expression.

 

“Okay, that's not -” Tanya stops.

 

“You might need to calm down mate.”

 

Matteusz shoots Ram a glare so cutting that Ram takes a step back.

 

“Ram's right – we should talk about this.”

 

“We are not talking about this,” Matteusz shoves the gun in his pocket and nods at Ballon - “Find them.”

 

Ballon nods, turns into a bloodhound and leads them out the door, and they are running again, April lagging behind after stopping to lock the door. Then there is nothing for some time but the pounding of feet and the pounding of hearts and the blood rushing in the ears and Matteusz never knew the world could go so red, never knew how the brain could scream for darkness, never wanted to know, never knew himself so little or was so sure of what he was capable of. He has heard rage described as cold before but never imagined he could feel it so violently. He cannot even think about what Charlie must be feeling any more because it heaves up in his throat until he feels like he is going to be sick, he cuts it out and just runs and the gun is a warm and comforting weight in his pocket and it should not be. It is not just a gun, it never was, it is all the potential of the gun – it is death and intent and meaning and just for now it does not matter, all that matters is that he has it and he could – he could – oh yes he could and he cannot even think about what that means.

 

The bloodhound stops on a street corner, sniffing tentatively before heading, more slowly, into Totters Lane, the others following, grateful for the change of pace and being able to breathe again. Ballon stops again outside an abandoned warehouse next to the old junk yard.

 

“Here?” April pants, catching up, and if a dog can nod then the bloodhound does.

 

“How do we?” Tanya squints – there's an old door with a rusted lock but it does not yield to the first pressure and she steps back, Matteusz's hand moves to his inner pocket and Ram slaps it -

 

“What, and hold up a great big _We're Here!_ Sign? Bad idea -”

 

Whilst all of them are talking the bloodhound morphs quite horrifyingly into a small pachycephalosaurus and breaks the door in with one neat head butt to the lock.

 

“Not sure that's _loads_ better,” mutters Ram. They all fall silent and listen out for noises; there _are_ faint sounds of talking coming from upstairs and as quietly as four people and a dinosaur can they cross the warehouse floor looking for the stairs. The place is long deserted and brown with rust and crumbling metal, the stairs when they find them mouldering and dangerous, the walls stained and foul smelling like old oil and rot. In a wide open upper room they they see the bounty hunter talking into his arm piece and lounging between two crates.

 

They are small crates, barely large enough for a dog in each, dark silver in colour and with holes in the tops that cannot let in much light. One of them positively shakes for the thundering inside and muffled shouting, the other is silent. The comparison chills them all, and they stay, perfectly silent and unobserved until Tanya jumps to see April standing in Shadowkin form all of a sudden next to her. April sighs as the bounty hunter turns to look at them.

 

“Oh,” she says wearily - “Bollocks.”

 

The man speaks into his radio quickly -

 

“Requesting level four back up ASAP.”

 

The hunters drop, seemingly from the ceiling, on the instant -

 

“Pacify the humans!” the bounty hunter yells - “Capture the alien if you can!”

 

It does not occur to April until half of the five men to have dropped turn towards her that she _is_ the alien in question. What does occur to her is that in this body she still has Shadowkin powers and is able to swiftly put three men down while Tanya and Ram tackle the other two at which point two things also occur to Ram in quick succession. One is that April is in danger and he has to fight to protect her, the other, coming swiftly on the back of this, is that he owes Matteusz an apology for telling him to calm down earlier. After that all he can do is shriek _APRIL!_ In his head like the shriek itself is a weapon.

 

Whilst all of this is going on Matteusz and Ballon push forward unseen, Ballon turning himself into an unrecognisable gadget and slipping into the lock on Quill's crate. The bounty hunter takes note of this and the fact that the fighting intruders are winning, only just in time for Quill to burst out of her crate, unarmed but ready to join in the fight. Before she can the man grabs a weapon from his belt, hanging beside a large bunch of keys; aiming it first in one direction – shooting it into Ballon as Quill ducks down, and then into the group on the other side of the room, freezing them all in mid movement and rendering them stuck in position. As he turns back to Quill he feels something cold and metallic against his neck and a voice just as cold saying -

 

“Drop it.”

 

Damn. He had not even registered the other boy until now, but it is too late to rectify the mistake and he drops the weapon, backing up carefully. The man has built a life out of judging people and he had not judged this one a threat. He is still not sure how much he does.

 

“You don't want to shoot me, kid.”

 

“You have my boyfriend in a box. I really, really think I do.”

 

“We can negotiate -”

 

“We cannot. Let him out.”

 

“Mate, do you know what I do for a living? You think I haven't seen scarier things than you?”

 

Although there is a falter in the man's voice as he starts to wonder if this is strictly true. Watching every movement between them carefully, Quill slips in beside Matteusz, but not too close, just for caution.

 

“You really want to listen to the boy holding a gun at you,” she nods - “I concur. Let him go.”

 

“Not on your life. This one's a prince you said? Do you know the kind of market we can get for princes? And this one's rather pretty, had a peep myself. Might even have a go.”

 

Quill feels her lip curl in distaste and risks a glance at Matteusz, hearing a noise rising in his throat that sounds like a snarl and comes out in a hiss. _Fuck_ she thinks, watching his hand trembling around the gun and the way his intake of breath makes his chest heave. Then he says something she never once imagined she would hear him say to anyone and she is shocked to realise that she believes every syllable.

 

“I am going to kill you”.

 

“Matteusz -” she says quietly, warningly, because she can hear the truth of his intent in his oh-so quiet voice; she can see it in his eyes, in the unwavering line on the gun.

 

“Don't,” she hears herself say, at the same time thinking _is this me saying this?_ And she knows as though she can hear it that there is a voice in Matteusz' head asking the same question. He ignores her. She recognises the sound of the breath he takes next, it's the intake just before the trigger is pulled.

 

“ _Matteusz!_ ”

 

She whips out a hand and twists the gun from his fingers in a quick practised move that has to hurt but he just stares at her in shock and anger, a growl leaking from between his teeth.

 

“You're not a killer,” she says, half regretful, half respectful of the fact, and the man in front of them breathes out an audible sigh of relief -

 

“But I am,” she adds, and shoots the man neatly in the head.

 

For a long very very silent moment she and Matteusz simply stare at each other before realising there is too much to say here and too much to be done in this instant. Quill picks the stun gun up off the floor and yanks the keys from the dead man's belt, chucking them to Matteusz, who until he catches them cannot stop looking at the body on the floor. Keys in hand he drops straight to the box, getting more and more frustrated as he works through keys to find the right one. Charlie does not even move when the door is opened, just stays in a huddle in the far corner blinking at the sudden change in light but otherwise rigidly still. He barely even reacts when Matteusz touches his hand and in the end has to almost be pulled out. Once out he starts to shake and shake so violently Matteusz has to hold him still, wrapping his arms around him and letting him bury his face in his chest, clinging on as though he will never let go. It occurs to Matteusz, like a bad dream, that they were holding hands when the net snatched Charlie away – one moment there and the other gone and all the connection in the world did not change this. He suspects he may have nightmares for a long time of Charlie being so literally torn out of his hands and that will just be the start of them. He holds on tightly and looks up at Quill.

 

“Why?” he says, wide eyed, more than half angry.

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why did you stop me killing that man?”

 

“Because you were going to.”

 

“Yes.” He would struggle to believe it if he did not know how true it felt.

 

“Maybe I don't like being shoved in a box myself. Also he _froze_ Ballon – I'm not -”

 

“And the real reason?”

 

Quill sighs.

 

“Oh, shut up.”

 

Matteusz does not stop looking at her.

 

“I meant it. You're not a killer. You'd be surprised how many people that's true of or how many people really know themselves. Would you have known who you were if you shot that man?”

 

Matteusz is not surprised to feel that he is crying silently, he has always been good at crying quietly; he shakes his head -

 

“It didn't matter -”

 

“You love him,” she sighs. “It only didn't matter compared to that. It _would_ have mattered. You can only be who you are – his father -” she gestures to Ballon who cannot stop shifting as though to make up for the moments frozen - “Taught me that. And who _you_ are is not a killer. That's not a bad thing. Own it.” She scowls furiously, only just realising that this could be true. “Now can we please get the hell out of here?”

 

Neither boy replies, so Quill turns to the others, still frozen.

 

“You know I almost don't want to do this,” she smirks, but unfreezes them all the same. They fall forward, half yelling, half grunting, with the air knocked out of them.

 

“Did we win?” Tanya asks, looking up from the floor.

 

-x-

 

“Ever upward bloody Reach,” Quill says, a small card in her hand, catching up to the rest of them as they head away from the warehouse and out into Totters Lane.

 

“What?” the others half turn to her, except for Charlie who holds Matteusz's hand firmly and looks down at the ground.

 

“That guy was hired by them. I knew he wasn't working alone when I asked about the flowers before. Didn't know anything about them. I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't just another of the Governors' games. Checking us out to see what we'd do.”

 

“Hope they're bloody happy then,” Ram growls, surprised at how angry he is; Matteusz catches his eye and raises half an eyebrow.

 

“Yeah, sorry mate,” Ram nods, “about before. I wouldn't have kept calm either.” He takes hold of April's hand though it is so large his own is swamped in it.

 

“You gonna – put that ring back on any time soon?” Tanya asks.

 

“Fuck it,” April shrugs half a shoulder, a ridiculous gesture on a Shadowkin that somehow, in spite of all appearances, makes her look like April even in this body - “I can't keep caring.”

 

“Um – you go girl – I guess?”

 

“You can care when you're back in school young lady,” Quill adds. “I've had enough of students running away from my classes. And I've had enough of the Governors.”

 

“Why do you think they brought you here?” Ram asks, gesturing the warehouse - “Instead of just taking you straight off?”

 

“Probably part of seeing what you'd all do. How you fight, who you fight for -” she looks sideways at Matteusz and Charlie - “They're really not very bright.”

 

“So you don't think he was really going to try and -” Ram finds himself fighting to get his head round the idea of it - “Sell you off or whatever?”

 

“Oh probably. Intergalactic slave trade's a hell of a thing and like he said the market for -” she sees Charlie actually looking up at her, confusedly, and stops talking - “Well anyway. Yeah. Probably. Good thing you all don't suck as much as you seem to.”

 

“Yeah but why _here?_ ”

 

“Probably had a spaceship waiting nearby. God knows there's at least as much artron energy hanging around this street as at the school. What, you can't smell artron energy? Shame on you all.”

 

She stalks off ahead, leaving them to fall behind.

 

-x-

 

“You look deep in thought,” Vivian says, eyeing Tanya as she sits on the sofa, not reading the textbook in her hand.

 

“Did you ever -” Tanya has not been able to stop thinking about this all evening - “Did you ever want to kill anyone?”

 

“Woah.” Tanya looks up as her mum comes to sit beside her on the sofa. “Who do you want to kill?”

 

“Nah not me,” Tanya shrugs - “Not specifically. I was just wondering.”

 

“I do not think I ever did. Not like you say, specifically, but I remember when I first knew that I would kill and why.”

 

“When?”

 

Vivian smiles at her and pats her knee -

 

“Day I got married. I thought – anyone tries to take this man away I will kill them, and you hear people say it all the time, but it is another thing to know it is not just words. Then again when you were born and your brothers – the same thought, the same knowledge – that I could fight and I _could_ kill.”

 

“For family then,” Tanya ponders.

 

“For the people we love,” her mother agrees - “For this, it is not such a bad thing I think.”

 

“So is love bad?” Tanya frowns.

 

“Love is insane,” Vivian nods, kissing Tanya on the top of the head and giving her a quick hug - “But just because something is insane does not mean it is bad. Love is also wonderful, you will see.”

 

Tanya looks at her mum and thinks about when she saw her die. She nods -

 

“I think I already do.”

 

-x-

 

“The thing is,” April leans back in bed, holding the ring between her fingers. “I never liked what I looked like before? I remember on prom night looking in the mirror and not much liking what I saw. I remember looking at other girls and thinking, god how much better than me they look. But you know what I think?”

 

“What?” Ram looks at her and thinks how lucky he is to be able to see her without any context as to appearance or attractiveness; somehow it is almost easier to know who she is without it.

 

“I think the prettiest girls in the world often think this too. You read about it in the papers all the time. I mean -”

 

“Rachel used to worry too,” Ram nods.

 

“That _is_ what I wanted to ask, and there you see – she was one of those girls I'd think what's the point? I'll never look like that? And now I just think – why bother? You can spend your whole life fighting to look _better,_ whatever that means, and then all you do is get old anyway and by the time your eighty who cares if you ate the extra cake or wore the wrong make up, but what if you went your whole life without trying to be a better person? _That_ you might regret? Am I making sense?”

 

“Kinda.”

 

“I think you shouldn't judge your body on how it looks to other people but on the fact that you live in it and on what it can do for you? I mean - I know I look funny but I work fine. I look at you and I look at my mum and how you get used to your changes and I think – it's about how we react to these things, how we change with ourselves that matters, not the way it looks because how silly is that?”

 

“You're right,” Ram nods. “You're _always_ right -”

 

“Not _always.”_

 

“Because look at me – I'm pretty, I mean you know, I am – and all I can think to say when you say something smart like that is _yeah but I'm hot though?”_

 

April rolls her eyes.

 

“It's okay,” she grins - “You can still be a good person anyway. More or less.”

 

-x-

 

Matteusz wipes condensation off the bathroom mirror and stands there for a long time, numbly looking at his face in the glass.

 

“Do you HAVE to both be in there at the same time?” Quill yells - “Other people in this house need to pee, you know!”

 

But they do have to. Charlie has not let him be more than a metre away at any time since they left the warehouse. He even perched on the edge of the toilet the whole time Matteusz was in the shower but at least he was just about talking again. Matteusz wipes at the mirror again, pulling his face into different shapes to see if it will become unrecognisable if he does. It does not. He wonders if it would if he had fired that gun – he hears the report and over in his head as though it really had been him that pulled the trigger.

 

“Are you alright?” Charlie turns off the shower and steps out, taking the second towel from off the door. He stands close behind Matteusz, a hand on his shoulder, looking at their faces in the mirror.

 

“Unclear,” Matteusz says. “Do you remember when I said 'We do these things because we must but who are we when it is over'?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I did not know” -” Matteusz feels heavy, somehow, like so much is weighing him down he does not know where to begin - “How in danger I was – I thought I was talking more about you, but -”

 

“You're afraid you don't know who you are?”

 

“I – Charlie, I was ready to _kill_ that man – from the moment I heard what had happened I was ready to kill – for hurting you – it has been a long time since I was ever scared of you but isn't this scarier?”

 

“I don't understand.”

 

Matteusz turns away from the mirror, clasps Charlie's face in both hands; somehow it steadies him more than looking at himself, makes him know himself better, seeing himself in Charlie's eyes than looking in the mirror.

 

“ _You -”_ he says, wishing it was easier to turn the wild churning in his chest into words. “You are everything, you know this? _Everything._ I cannot tell you – I cannot begin – how precious you are – how much I need you – what I would _do -”_ his voice shakes - “What I would do,” he says again. “Someone looks at you funny, I want to hurt them and that man – for hurting you, I could have – I want to say I do not know what I could have done, but I do, and that is what is scary and I am sorry, I am _so_ sorry -”

 

“Why are you sorry?”

 

“-because I judged you. Back when you still had the cabinet. When you said you wanted to use it to kill the ones who killed the people you loved – I did not mean to judge, or want to, but I did – enough to say I was afraid of you. But I am afraid of myself so much more and also -” he knows it is not entirely relevant but if it is coming out it may as well _all_ come out - “Also I was jealous that you may have loved anyone else. I am sorry.”

 

“I didn't,” Charlie frowns - “I remember I said that. That the Shadowkin had killed everyone I loved but it was – it was a figure of speech more than anything. I never loved anyone. I did not even know what it meant. But loving you – that's not a figure of speech and I think – I think I do know what you mean because it scares me too. When they put me in that box -” He almost cannot continue but pushes past it, _let me be brave,_ he thinks – _April would be brave, let me be too -_ “I struggled at first but not for long. I'm ashamed of that. But I stopped because I started thinking so quickly that I deserved this, whatever happened, I deserved it for daring to survive when my people didn't and then for being glad – on some level because I think I was- about the life that I have now – it seemed so obvious that I deserved this -”

 

“You do _not -”_

 

“But at the same time I realised that if they were going to kill me – that I didn't want it. All this summer I've been torn – thinking that I _ought_ to be dead, deserved to be but also I knew I had so much to be alive for – I felt guilty for thinking both thoughts, like I was lost either way – then I remembered – in the box in the dark I could almost hear you telling me that if I was lost you would find me – I don't know if I'd have made it if I hadn't thought of that, but I knew, for sure, that the thing I wanted most was to live, to have a whole lifetime with you. I want – I want to do everything in the world with you.”

 

“I want that too.”

 

“Do you think maybe – I know we have to fight, I think I'm becoming alright with that, and maybe it's a good fight, but do you think that at the same time we could just be – kids? Working it all out like everyone else?”

 

“You mean all the normal stuff as well as the aliens – like who we are and what we're doing – what Quill calls teen angst?”

 

“Yes. Can we just – be seventeen?”

 

“Please”.

 

“Do you think we should put some clothes on?”

 

“Soon.”

 

Matteusz leans down and kisses him and it is fierce and wild and almost violent, aching and urgent in the warm room.

 

-x-

 

Half an hour later Charlie and Matteusz come out of the bathroom a little timidly, a little sheepish.

 

“Quill!” Charlie yells - “Bathroom's free!”

 

“I don't neeeeed it any more!” Quill sings out happily from downstairs, and Charlie yelps slightly as he stubs his toe against a mug sat by the bathroom door.

 

“Quill? What's in this mug?”

 

-x-

 

**So this is my personal favourite episode so far. Feedback would be very much loved! Yes, if anyone wondered, there are more than a few _Chaos Walking_ references slipped in here!**

 

**Next week on _Class_! - Ram has notifications, Charlie has nightmares, Quill's gets a phone call and Matteusz gets into a fight. Oh and it's a year exactly since that fateful autumn prom....**

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Episode 5: Notifications**

 

 

Nobody ever really dies online. You never know when an old post will re-surface – something you thought was dead, a meme run dry, a Tumblr post nobody reblogs any more, a long gone Twitter message that once went viral but nobody has care in years and then suddenly it resurfaces again and is brought up out of context and becomes something else based on the people now reading it, taking it to a new context from the one that was originally meant.

 

And what do you _do,_ Ram wonders – you cannot just de-friend someone because they're dead, can you? Anyway, he cannot. He still has Rachael on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter – sometimes he sees a notification as to how long she has been inactive, and there is always that awful, inappropriate part of his brain that laughs _yeah, really fucking inactive,_ but mostly it still just hurts. And yet he lets it keep hurting.

 

Because sometimes, just sometimes, he sees the notifications and it does not hurt as much as it used to. He half wishes it would and then there's those moments, horrible guilty moments, where he's staring at one of these notifications and April goes _whatcha doing?_ and he closes the page quickly like he must be doing something wrong, feeling guilty, feeling like he's somehow cheating on April by looking at these pages. But then he supposes he cannot win, because if he was to de-friend her it would feel like – well you can't cheat on a dead person – but it would feel painfully disloyal, and he _can't,_ not even now, coming up on a year later.

 

It's making it worse too; the imminent anniversary. Not to mention it was Rachael's birthday last week and he received the obligatory _Tell Rachael you're thinking of her!_ message, and it almost made him punch his laptop. _If I bloody could,_ he thinks, but what can he do? His fingers hovered over her Facebook page, actually considering a _Happy Birthday, wish you were here,_ or something like that, but then – and especially after the Skandis debacle he _really_ doesn't want to be putting any more Messages To A Dead Girlfriend in places where people will see them.

 

Yesterday he got one of those _This Time Last year_ notifications and it was Rachael sharing a message on Facebook: _Oh my god can't wait for prom! What are we wearing? Gotta match right?_

 

He stared at it so numbly for so long that in the end April had come over, getting no answer from him as to what was wrong. He hadn't closed the page or anything, and she hadn't _meant_ to be nosy but he still resented her for looking, even resented her for the sympathetic _Oh Ram, I'm sorry,_ and the hug she gave him that he did not return. They've been frosty about it ever since but without acknowledging what it is that they are frosty about. He suspects sometimes April worries that she's just the rebound. Hell, sometimes _he_ worries that she's just the rebound, even if he does love her all the same.

 

Mind you, they've all been a little moody this past week. Nobody is talking about it, but they all know that it's only three days now until the anniversary of the autumn prom. Coal Hill aren't holding one this year, and in face of those students who did not know why complaining about it, they issued a statement that it was because of _Certain grievous consequences of last year's prom._ He supposes that by now everyone knows that means Rachael's death, but perhaps it is only the six of them in the school who know how much else it is. But somehow, having people he could share this with is not helping, in fact it's really just making him resent them and he keeps coming back to _this time last year my life was awesome_ until he feels ready to be sick on the thought.

 

And today, not long really since he had foolishly said _how much worse can things get_ he sits in front of a computer screen, alone in his room staring at a message in his inbox – _You have new notifications from:_

 

And he wants to know _how_ in the hell can he have? And he does not want to know, but after what feels like a lifetime of sitting and staring he does click and there it is; a new private message from Rachael on Facebook:

 

_Anniversary, huh? How you doing Ram? Miss you._

 

_-x-_

 

Humans talk a lot – or anyway, quite a bit – about waking up screaming from their nightmares. Charlie wonders, as he wonders about a thousand things a day, if this is a true thing or just one of those times when it sounds better to say one thing than admit to the more usual reality of it – that most of the time the screaming stays in the chest and comes out in a faint strangled squeak at best. He wonders, with faint despair, if he will ever quite get the hang of being human, because here he is again waking up shivering and scared with a nauseating jolt out of dreams of a small dark space that he cannot escape, convinced for several seconds that he is still in it until the faint lamp light from outside starts to pick out the shadows of his room.

 

He is glad, as he wakes up a little, to find that he was not screaming – not out loud at least, though there is a scream inside him that burns tearing through his chest – but he has woken Matteusz enough times this week already just from whimpering in his sleep and waking with jolts like this. Matteusz never seems to mind – or if he does, he pushes the part that minds behind the first instinct to help and he always knows just how to hold him and soothe him and has the right words to make it better. Charlie feels bad for feeling guilty about this, because he is sure that when it is the other way round and Matteusz is the one waking from the nightmares – that for himself, he always says the wrong thing and is awkward and clumsy. How does that happen? Knowing what to say – is it a human thing? Is it innate or does it come from practice? Is Matteusz better than other humans? (Well, yes, of course _he_ thinks so) or is it just him? Is he too alien? Is he just a ghastly boyfriend? A terrible person? There is a question song constantly singing in Charlie's head that only ever spools question after question, each answer leading to more questions that fly around the head like leaves in a storm.

 

His head is noisy with it now. He turns gently, just a fraction, to look at Matteusz still asleep, one silver bar painted across his face from the chink where the curtains meet and are not completely closed. He wants to touch, to run his fingers over that face until the whole world makes sense because it _does_ work – but he restrains himself after the last time he woke him up doing that. ( _Charlie, how long have you been playing with my face? Um – not – long? You have, you have been sitting up awake and playing with my face, haven't you? It's a – good face? It is not a bad way to be woken, but I do not want woken just now -)_

 

There is a part of him – and Matteusz has laughed at him for it, albeit kindly – that just _has_ to touch everything, explore everything with all of his senses. He has tried to explain it, he is not sure how well he does – but touch and feeling seem to come so easy to humans, it never did to Rhodians; they liked to think themselves above mere sensation – but he never did, and he _loves_ that he can now. He satisfies himself with a butterfly kiss to a sleeping forehead and creeps quietly from the room.

 

Downstairs in the kitchen he turns the main light on and is answered with a yell from the living room. He pads in on bare feet to find Quill in her armchair with a book and one dim lamp.

 

“What time do you call this to be dancing round the house? Don't you know you have school tomorrow?”

 

“I could ask you the same thing.”

 

There is something about Quill that makes Charlie stick his chin outwards and up, no matter what mood he is in or how sleepy.

 

“You couldn't because I'm _sitting,_ not _dancing._ If you're making hot chocolate, where's mine?”

 

Charlie sighs, and two minutes later pads back into the living room with two mugs of chocolate. Quill raises an eyebrow in surprise.

 

“Blimey. He's growing as a person.”

 

“Some people say _thank you.”_

 

Charlie takes the sofa, pulling his legs up under him and tugging his dressing gown over his feet, wishing he had thought about socks.

 

“Yes well as you're so fond of telling me, some people aren't _people._ ”

 

“Oh, please. It's been a long time since I said anything derogatory about your people, Quill.”

 

“Actually it has. Are you sure you're quite well? Nah, forget that – you're clearly trotting round the house at two in the morning because you're sleeping like a baby. What happened to waking the boyfriend, having a nice safe shag and going back to sleep?”

 

“He's – asleep and – and never say _shag_ to me again – and anyway he's been through -”

 

“Enough? Is there such thing as going through enough, do you think?”

 

 

“Not as long as we keep living.”

 

“And we do don't we? Ballon's living in the box room by the way, time he had his own room.”

 

Charlie shrugs, raises an eyebrow mock-caustically.

 

“ _Whatever”._

 

Quill snorts.

 

“How are you alright with it?” Charlie hears himself ask suddenly, impatiently.

 

“What?”

 

“It happened to you too! We were – captured – put in boxes – god knows what they would have done with us -”

 

“I know.”

 

“You do? How? What?”

 

“Nope, sorry. I have a pact on not to tell you.”

 

“With whom?”

 

“Do you know how many kids your age actually say _whom_ when they ought to? Anyway, no sorry, your boyfriend would kill me.”

 

Charlie snorts.

 

“Matteusz would never kill anyone.”

 

Quill looks at him hard, but then, she supposes, time was she would have thought the same thing and said it just as flippantly.

 

“Oh yeah, you kind of missed that whole part, didn't you?”

 

“I'm confused.”

 

“You're always confused. Did he not tell you? Because we don't have a pact on about this bit.”

 

“I know he was so angry about it he still can't really talk about it – I know he threatened that man -”

 

“Yeah, _threatened_ is putting it mildly, that man was lucky it was _me_ who killed him.”

 

Charlie looks into his mug for a long time, frowning.

 

“I didn't -”

 

“Know? That's because you're an idiot. There's a drive to protect you in that boy that's stronger than an Arn in the head.”

“And just when I thought you were being nice. I've _said_ I'm sorry about that -”

 

“Actually you haven't,” Quill shrugs, sips some chocolate - “Good chocolate. Human food does grow on one, doesn't it?”

 

“Being human grows on one.”

 

“Is that what we are now? I had wondered. Not sure we are, but have it your way.”

 

“I suppose – both? Like dual citizenship? Quill, I – I've wanted to talk to you about something.”

 

“Oh god.”

 

“No it's – wait a minute -”

 

He runs upstairs on tiptoe, moves quietly through the bedroom and slips out again, coming back with the box in one hand and socks in the other.

 

“I'm almost certain you could have put your own socks on without asking me about it.”

 

Charlie rolls his eyes, hands Quill the box, and gets back on the sofa, pulling his socks on.

 

“What the hell is this?”

 

“Tanya gave it to me. She says it's a wishing box. It has one wish left.” He says it stiffly, finding it harder to look at Quill for knowing where he plans to go with this. Also he has been thinking about this for weeks and finally saying the thing is always hard.

 

“Uh -huh,” Quill grunts non committally, which does not really help and he _knows_ without looking that she is looking at him suspiciously and he sighs because he supposes if he were her he'd be suspicious too.

 

“Tanya says it could bring back a whole species,” he says slowly.

 

“And you're giving it to me, why?”

 

“Look, I know,” he sighs - “I _know_ I'm probably doing this wrong and I know I owe it to my people to bring them back but – I mean do you _remember_ my people?”

 

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

 

Charlie waves this away -

 

“Doesn't matter. I just – when I told you I would have been a fair ruler – or tried to be? I wouldn't have. I know that now. I would have thought I was being, I would have felt like I was trying but I don't think I possibly _could_ have been basing all of my expectations just on what I'd been taught – what I'd been shown of ruling from my own family. I don't – I know I'm awful for saying this, that there's a level on which you _can't_ say your parents, your people were anything other than perfect but – but -”

 

Quill makes an impatient _come the fuck on_ gesture with the curl of one finger.

 

“I can't take credit for coming to see things differently, you know I can't – but I've talked and talked with the others so many times and I've argued the moral superiority of my side until I – well until I don't even think I believe it any more. I just want to do what's right, to be good, not to be better so I need to say this -”

 

“Oh godddd -” Quill puts a hand to her suddenly hurting head - “Bloody say it, then!”

 

“Alright!”

 

Charlie takes a deep breath, sits up properly and more than just a little bit more straight on the sofa and says, as though it is a speech and it _is_ a declaration;

 

“I would like to say, on behalf of my people, that I am formally sorry for our part in the hostilities between our people and for the treatment of your people that may have been perceived as oppression -”

 

Quill makes a quietly incredulous noise and mouths _may have been perceived?_ But Charlie ignores her and struggles on -

 

“In consequence of which I cannot justify saving my species at the cost of yours and therefore present you, Andra'ath, last of the Quill, with the means of saving yours. There!” Charlie flops back into the sofa on the last word, cheeks red and heart beating fast - “I never made my own speech before, they were always written for me, I apologise if it was other than eloquent.”

 

“Painful actually,” Quill nods - “But -”

 

She opens her mouth and closes it again several times, each time settling on a different thing to say and thinking better of it. In the end, squeezing the box in her hands, she says, in her own language, a formal phrase which best translates as _I thank you for your words and on behalf of my people accept them,_ and at the end she uses a name Charlie has not heard directed at him in what has come to feel like a lifetime. He smiles awkwardly and nods.

 

“It's been a while since anyone called me that.”

 

“It's been a while since anyone pronounced _Andra'ath_ to me correctly.”

 

“I think – I think I feel like just _Charlie_ now?”

 

“Yeah, I've gotten used to _Quill._ Who we are – it's a work in progress, isn't it?”

 

“I think Matteusz would say that's true of everyone.”

 

“Speaking of which, get your royal arse back up to bed, prince- no amount of albeit intensely meaningful apology on however epic a level will get you out of school tomorrow. Go!”

 

 

He goes. This time he sleeps.

 

-x-

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning is a Thursday, and Ram does not speak to any of them in school even (especially?) April. They are all of them tense today, on edge and unfriendly, incapable of any one of them passing another without the unspoken _this time last year was the day before prom_ hanging between them like a thick net none of them can push through. April looks pensive and wistful, Tanya has closed herself off, Charlie looks so nakedly guilty that Ram would feel bad for him if he didn't also kind of want to punch him. He hates that the most – knowing that Charlie feels terrible, as though everything that happened was his fault and simultaneously understanding the feeling and wanting to just shout at him _yeah you know what this IS your fault!_ \- even though he knows it's unfair. Feeling like a dick used to make him feel faintly better. It doesn't any more, and he suspects it's all the sodding good influences around him; his _friends,_ his dad, and April worst of all. When everyone around him is so _good_ he feels worse and then resents them for it. It makes him almost feel warmly towards Quill who looks cranky as all hell but then she's always cranky as all hell so the familiarity is at least comforting. Matteusz too just has on his most neutral face which bothers Ram less than the others do and he thinks _good plan_ and tries to do the same.

 

It does not go well.

 

Lunchtime finds Charlie, Tanya and April eating a very quiet lunch together on the steps when the fairly familiar sound of mayhem breaks out in a nearby corridor. It's the sound of a group of teenagers either yelling to each other that a fight has broken out or simply gathering near the event itself and yelling _FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! -_ as though, as Tanya observed the last time this happened, the antagonists in question were not doing exactly that already, and duh, that was kind of the point? The sounds of actual altercation are lost beneath these exterior sounds of excitement and after briefly looking up April returns to her sandwich shrugging, Tanya cocks her head to the side for a moment and says -

 

“Why though?” as though their last conversation about this was only minutes ago - “I mean what is it about two boys – and it probably _is_ boys, no offence Charlie – beating each other up that gets people running to watch?”

 

“It _is_ remarkably uncivilized,” April agrees - “I mean more on the part of the spectators than whatever idiots have started it.

 

“Depends what you mean by civilized,” Charlie chips in - “I mean my planet was exceptionally civilized – don't roll your eyes, Tanya it _was_ but people still visited the coliseum for an evening's entertainment and you don't even do that here – a planet arguably _less_ civilized than we – what?” he notices that April's face has gone pale and stony and she has stood up, snappishly listening to two kids running past them. He just catches one of them finish the sentence -

 

“Are you kidding/ My money's on Ram, man!”

 

“Oh for god's sake!” April mutters, storming off in the direction of the kerfuffle, Charlie hastening after her.

 

“April? April I really wouldn't – it's probably - ” April elbows her way ruthlessly to the front of the assembled crowd, Charlie struggling behind, her attempting to elbow but so politely as to find himself struggling immensely - “- excuse me – probably – not a good idea – April – to try and get between Ram – and whatever – idiot – he's – _Matteusz?”_

 

For a moment they both stand and stare at their boyfriends in shock, then stare at each other making _what the fuck? g_ estures until April makes another move forward, and Charlie reaches out to grab her, fails and sighs suggests that -

 

“We really should probably get a teacher.”

 

“Yes.” Somebody elbows _him_ extremely effectively from behind, and Quill storms past him, then storms past April - “You really should”. She sighs visibly, and grabs both boys sharply by the backs of the neck, and holds them apart at struggling arms length. Half of the surrounding kids vanish as if by magic the instant they notice Quill and the rest fall silent.

 

“You know,” Quill sighs. “When they pick up kittens like, this it's cute. They go all floppy. You boys are _not_ cute, and you do _not_ want to see me make you go floppy. Now – come on. Who started it?”

 

She finds herself impressed by how easily they actually do both stop, it's not quite floppiness, she thinks, but it will do. In fact both of them just look at the ground and mumble.

 

“Yes, because obviously I heard that,” Quill snaps - “Oi! Rest of you! Don't you have have lunch to waste and cupboards to go snog in? Go on bugger off, lot of you. _What_ was that?” She gives Matteusz an extra shake for trying to speak. He also tries to shrug -

 

“I said it depends what you mean by _started it –_ if you mean who threw the first punch or who provoked the first punch, it really is very -”

 

“Oh I don't give a holy damn crap!” Quill shakes them both - “Last time! Who started it?”

 

“I did,” they both sigh in near unison, then look at each other in surprise.

 

“Is okay,” Matteusz shrugs, this last shrug getting him out of Quill's grip, and she lets go of Ram as well, literally dusting her hands off on her jacket as she does as though she might catch something.

 

“I punched him”.

 

“Yeah, but I _did_ say -”

 

“I _know_ what you said.” Matteusz hisses it, but also seems to notice for the first time that Charlie and April and now Tanya are watching them and goes quiet where Ram suspects he might otherwise have repeated it.

 

“Oh I'm so bored already,” Quill groans, hands on hips and tapping her foot - “Run along and play, the lot of you and _don't_ let me catch you starting that again. Ram, you punch like a kitten. Matteusz, don't I have to hear enough sounds of your physical exertion at home? Piss off, the lot of you.”

 

She rolls her eyes and stomps off. Before they can even all stare at each other awkwardly April speaks for them all -

 

“What the _hell_ was that about?”

 

“Oh sod off,” Ram runs a hand over his face and stomps off as well. April takes a step to follow, but Tanya pushes her back.

 

“Let me”.

 

She runs after Ram. April stares helplessly between Charlie and Matteusz.

 

“What is going _on_ today?”

 

The silence she receives is so awkward that she walks away without another word.

 

“I really do have to second what April said,” Charlie shrugs slightly, looking up at Matteusz and frowning. Matteusz takes his hand and squeezes it tight.

 

-x-

 

“So?” Tanya catches up to Ram on a bench on the edge of the sport's field - “What was that all about?”

 

Ram makes an _Ugh_ sound and does not answer her.

 

“Ohh – kay,” Tanya says slowly - “Phrase it differently – were you _trying_ to get into a fight with someone? Just – you know – anyone?”

 

Ram kicks a pebble in vague frustration and embarrassment.

 

“Yeah. That's about right.”

 

“Thought so. Ram, what's _up?”_

 

“What do you mean what's up? Are you blind? I mean come on, genius girl I know we've been dancing around it all day, but isn't time _someone_ pointed out what day it is?”

 

“Why? So we can all get as cross about everything that happened as you? What good would that do?”

 

“Yeah but – we didn't all have the same thing happen, did we? I mean what I lost – I mean before prom my life was cool, okay? And then -”

 

“Oh I see. You're saying it's different because you lost more than anyone else, is that what you're saying?”

 

“Yeah that's what I'm saying.”

 

“Huh. Right. I can kinda see why Matteusz punched you.”

 

“Yeah? You should have heard what I said to _him.”_

 

“I don't want to. But I _would_ like to hear you tell any of the others how much more than them you've lost. Like Quill. Or Charlie – even -”

 

“ _Fuck_ Charlie – if it wasn't for him -”

 

“Ohhhh, _that's_ what you said to Matteusz, isn't it? Never mind – what's April done?”

 

“Who's saying -”

 

Tanya waves a hand at him in a gesture it suddenly occurs to her is a lot like one of her mother's.

 

“Genius girl. If you can use it, so can I. So. Why are you mad at April?”

 

Ram's shoulders sink, and Tanya feels like she has won and also hates it.

 

“I'm _not,”_ Ram groans, flopping back into the bench, legs going wide - “I'm just being a dick to her because of something else, okay? Happy now?”

 

“What something else?”

 

Ram taps his fingers together for a few minutes, thinking about it, then sighs.

 

“Okay,” he nods, and slowly takes his phone out, handling it like a dangerous animal that might bite at any moment.

 

-x-

 

“Really? He said that?” Charlie frowns a little, looking down - “Oh dear. I mean – it's true though – isn't it? You really punched him for that?”

 

“It is _not_ true.”

 

“It _is._ It actually is. Do you you think I haven't thought it enough myself – that all of this was my fault? If I had never come here none of you would have suffered – I think about it all the time. Ram was right -”

 

Charlie hardly even sounds bitter like he used to when he started to blame himself like this, just defeated, and it worries Matteusz more than the bitterness ever did.

 

“It is _not_ your fault,” he insists, sitting down on the steps, Charlie following. Matteusz reaches for his face to make him make eye contact – Charlie never will of his own accord when he feels like this.

 

“Charlie, you must listen to me. Bad things happened, yes they happened to all of us, but just because they happened to you and Quill first does not make you responsible -”

 

“It _does.”_

 

“Charlie, shut up. You are not responsible for us, not for anyone -”

 

“Not any more.”

 

“You are starting to make me cross. Sometimes I think you would blame yourself for Donald Trump. Also Brexit. Do not be so stubborn. It is like you _want_ to blame yourself.”

 

“Who else is there?” This is not bitter, not defeated, just one of those very simple, innocent questions that make him look and sound like a very small, very lost child. Matteusz wonders if Charlie even knows how young he looks at times like these, how fragile; he very much doubts he would want to hear it.

 

“Sometimes there is no-one to blame,” he shrugs. “Does not mean you should pick on yourself.”

“Everywhere I go people get hurt.”

 

“Everywhere people get hurt. I know you do not like to hear it but not everything is about you. I mean this in a good way.”

 

“You're right. It's hard to – I can't quite – but I know you're right. You really shouldn't have punched Ram for me though.”

 

“You would, I think, for me.”

 

“I would.”

 

“I would have liked to see it.”

 

Matteusz smiles but it fades quickly as he thinks about how quickly his fist seemed to move of its own accord. It does not feel like _him_ to do it but it would not be possible _not_ to. He is not sure he will ever get over the discovery of what he nearly did – what he would still be prepared to do in defence and protection of Charlie, and there is still so much he has not said, not even to Quill.

 

(and when did _that_ happen; _not even to Quill? (you know, you know when that happened, you know the very moment – you're not a killer she said – but I am and the shot that went off and went off and went off and oh fuck he needs help with this he cannot even voice -)_ but it is true there are things he cannot even say to her, the thoughts he is trying to pretend he never had, and can he keep something that weighs on him so hard from Charlie? It feels wrong, but wouldn't it be so much more wrong to tell him? No, surely not, when he cannot even tell himself he thought those things but he did think them, he really did -)

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing,” he shakes his head, tries to make it true, _hates_ lying to Charlie but he has to - “Nothing – we should – go talk to Ram. I think he is needing help just now.”

 

“I agree.”

 

“It may mean skipping class.”

 

“I've never done that before,” Charlie finds himself smiling faintly, unable to contain a faint excitement at the thought.

 

“Charlie Smith – rebel.” Matteusz sees the smile and it is infectious. “Just when I thought nothing could surprise me. Come on. Let's go find Ram.”

 

-x-

 

“Thoughts?”

 

“I mean – prank right? Mean prank but still -”

 

“Thing is -” Ram pulls up the new messages, there are _dozens_ of them, all the way from that first one to _Ram? Ram why won't you answer, don't you love me any more?_

 

“So – what do you think? You think it's really Rachael?”

 

“Like, would that even be so weird any more? I don't even know?”

 

“You think like her spirit got trapped on the internet? Like this is a ghost?”

 

“Fuck sake Tanya, how the hell would I know? But I mean maybe? Or it's something like the Lankin pretending to her? Or some alien – thing – that can make the dead speak to us online? _I_ don't know – I just -” he looks as guilty as he feels and stops.

 

“You wish it would just stop right?”

 

“I'm the worst.”

 

“I don't think that's _the worst._ I thought the same thing. With the Lankin, I remember thinking I don't even want this to be my dad? Because how do I get used to that when I'm only just starting to get used to him being gone? How do you get used to either of those things? And then with a girlfriend it's gotta be different right because -”

 

“Because April,” Ram finishes for her - “I _know,”_ he groans - “I _know_ okay. April – April and me – we don't make sense? Me and Rachael well – it made sense? Like, for shit's sake, we knew each other since primary school! Started going out when we were fourteen – like everything was me and Rachael and I thought it always would be - and then – aren't we too young to deal with this shit?”

 

“I don't think there's an age limit on this sort of thing.”

 

“It's fucked up.”

 

“Helpful. What are you going to do?”

 

“If I knew that I wouldn't be talking to you.”

 

“I'm only trying to help! Still not your counsellor! Do you _want_ to keep getting these messages?”

 

“No! I mean – no? I don't think? But if it really is her then -”

 

“Then what? Cause you do have to think about that, yeah – if she was alive somehow, even some kind of I dunno – _here –_ and you could have her back, I mean would you? And if so then -”

 

“ _April.”_

 

Every time he says it he feels more confused but somehow he also feels stronger, like her name is his battle cry. He groans.

 

“I feel like I'm cheating on someone but I dunno who it is. Like – I never even split up with Rachael so -”

 

“So like – maybe you should? Okay right. Plan. We skip class, go home; your home, not mine, my mum would still kill me even though she's fairly sure we're not dating any more -”

 

“She thought that? Ewww. No offence.”

 

“Great. Thanks, but y'know – same. So anyway, we get on the computer and you _talk_ to her.”

 

“Talk to my dead girlfriend. Yep, right. Okay -” Ram stands up, not nearly as decisively as he feels - “I can do this.”

 

“Okay good – oh hang on what?”

 

Charlie and Matteusz run up to them breathlessly.

 

“I am sorry!” Matteusz blurts before even stopping to catch breath - “I am sorry I punched you and also the eye that is black – if it is a consolation it will make you look hard.” He thrusts out an awkward hand. Ram looks at it for a moment and gives a short laugh.

 

“Yeah alright. I'm sorry I said what I said.” He takes the offered hand to shake it but it turns into a manly hug, only marred by Charlie adding -

 

“And I'm sorry I um – well – everything?”

 

“That's like saying sorry for existing,” Tanya pats him on the arm. “You don't have to do that.”

 

“Sure he does,” Ram breaks out of the hug and punches Charlie lightly on the arm - “Any time you want. You do you. That's a joke by the way, if sarcasm's still too alien for you – or are you too alien for sarcasm?”

 

“Matteusz has been teaching me sarcasm – do we um – hug?”

 

“Nah, that's weird. Anyway why are you both here?”

 

“We came to apologise.”

 

“And to offer help because we thought maybe you need help.”

 

“Charlie is even prepared to skip school.”

 

“Damn,” Ram has to make it sound sarcastic because he finds himself meaning it. “That's bloody heroic, that is. Actually, yeah, we are skipping school – long story -”

 

“Rachael's ghost keeps texting Ram,” Tanya offers.

 

“Apparently not that long.” Ram heaves a sigh. “Yeah you can help – can you find April for me? Tell her – okay just tell her what Tanya said then we can all party with the ghost at mine when you find her?”

 

“Right.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Do we – I don't know – bump fists or something? I hear humans do that?”

 

“You know,” Ram starts walking away with Tanya. “If you hadn't said that I was almost gonna.”

 

-x-

 

 

 

“Hello, this is Quill speaking. What? No, calm your tits lady, it's not the doctor – I think you have the wrong number. Oh hang on, did you mean a doctor or _the Doctor?_ Big difference. Routine check up or adventures in time and space? Oh you _do_ want _the_ Doctor? Old, skinny chap, blue box – yes he is so quite old looking, don't argue, I'm a teacher! What do you mean why do I know him? How do _you_ know him and where did you get this number? Well no, obviously it's not the Doctor's number – maybe they're really similar and this is some wild coincidence – no shut up, calm down, where are you even from? - oh shit, yeah, yeah he did give me his old phone – huh. Now calm down; stop babbling, I am neither an operator nor a therapist. No, I'm not gonna just _give_ you the Doctor's number – how do I even know what you want? Could be evil. You sound evil. Oh now there's two of you babbling. Dear lord not in my classroom you wouldn't – what do you mean angels? Do you lot evangelise over phones now? And I had _so_ much fun with those people on the doorstep. What's that? You're breaking up? Tell him you called? Oh stop whining, they all say it's important – don't you tell me what to do young, lady – yeah whatever – if I can be arsed. Bye.”

 

Quill stares at the phone in her hand for a moment and shrugs.

 

“Weirdos”.

 

-x-

 

“There are so many different ways to go into battle,” April says when Charlie finds her - “I've known that all my life. But there are more ways than I even realised. Of course. Of course if I can help Ram I will but – no, never mind I'm being selfish.”

 

“I really doubt you are.”

 

“No I am I – the thing is – the thing is, I always kind of guessed I was rebound. Had to be. I'm not Ram's type just look at me! He's, you know – out of any of our league and he knows it. But I – god this is stupid – I love him?”

 

“Why is that stupid? Matteusz told me that after two weeks.”

 

“But you guys you're like – it's different – you're – you know – they write songs about couples like you. Not about me. I mean you seem to know each other without speaking about it – like you're inside each other -” she blushes furiously - “I didn't mean like that. I mean I'm sure you are – sometimes, but oh god foot. In my mouth. Why do I do this? I mean, it's like you can read each other's minds – I can't even guess at Ram's.”

 

“See that's the thing – we really can't – do that either? I don't think you have to, to know someone, you either love or you do not love and when you do you can read the other person better than they can. Like sometimes I have thoughts that are – wrong -” he cannot believe he is actually admitting to having realised this - “Like when I think everything is my fault and that my thoughts are like actions and that's when your person – if they're the right person – can help by being there and saying no, actually – it's what you do, not what you think – I mean I'm still working on getting my head around that one, but that's what relationships are for? One of the things – for making each other better people. You and Ram – you make each other better. It's obvious. Even to me.”

 

“We do?”

 

“I think so. Shall we go?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

 

-x-

 

Ram sits for a long moment in front of the computer, afraid to touch it. Tanya hits the switch and shrugs at him -

 

“Well? Go on?”

 

“I can't just – Facebook with you watching.”

 

“Then I won't watch. See. Right here. On the bed. Not watching.” Long moment - “Not hearing any typing either.”

 

Ram closes his eyes, gathers his strength.

 

 _Hi_ – he writes, deletes it, writes it again feeling stupid, sends.

 

_Rachael is typing a message..._

 

“Oh my god.”

 

_Ram?_

 

Deep breath. _I can be brave, I can, like April, like Tanya, like Quill. Like all of them._

 

_Rachael, is that really you?_

 

_Oh my god! I can't believe you finally replied! I missed you._

 

_You're um – I dunno how to say this but – you're dead!_

 

_I know :-(_

 

_How is this happening?_

 

_How do ghosts happen? I don't know, I just know I can message you, like I'm here? In my Facebook account – like I'm a brain without a body._

 

_Why'd you only message me now?_

 

_I wasn't here before. :o_

 

 _Where –_ deletes, re – writes – _Where were you?_

 

_Oh Ram, I can't tell you that._

 

_Why not?_

 

_I just can't._

 

_How do I know it's really you? Seen so much weird shit this year like you wouldn't believe._

 

_It's me. There's no point me telling you all the stuff I remember, cause you know aliens and weird shit – they can do that too right?_

 

_How do you know that?_

 

_I don't know. **Shrugs**_

 

 _You sound like you. I – I dunno why but I think it_ is _you – like with the Lankin – I knew I just knew it wasn't and this time I just know that it is?_

 

_That's it then. That's how you know. Ram I don't think I have long, like I get to come back this one day, to commemorate my own death? Powers that be are fucked up right?_

 

_I am so sorry – I am so sorry you died._

 

_Me too. I guess I just wanted to check and see you hadn't forgotten me._

 

_How can you say that? You know me right?_

 

_Do we ever know anyone? I mean even the person we love the most? That's still me right?_

 

_Ram?_

 

_Ram?_

 

_Ram?_

 

“Awww I can't _do_ this!” Ram yells. Tanya looks up startled - “I did love her, I did! But I didn't know her! We were kids! I love April!”

 

“Dude tell _her_ not me!”

 

For a moment he nearly asks if _her_ means April or Rachael, realises it doesn't matter and that the answer is both and gathers his forces.

 

_It's been a year, Rachael._

 

_Oh my god. You replaced me? D:_

 

_It wasn't like that._

 

_Who is she? Better be somebody cool._

 

He cannot tell if this is threatening, jealous, teasing or what; Rachael always had had an unpleasant way of leaving you guessing and she was sometimes kind of _mean_ to those she deemed _not cool._ Shit, so had he been then. He wonders now if that too was part of him trying to be what she wanted him to be, he _had_ always wanted to impress her and it was a want that had come to consume him, wanting to impress generally. He wonders now if part of that was her fault. His friends now are about the only people he never _has_ tried to impress. Because they were the people he used to be a dick to. It occurs to him that he may not be better at anything else now but that perhaps it matters a little less if he himself is _better._

 

 _Nah,_ he says, smiling as he writes it – _not really. This is tho, Rach – I loved you, I really did, for who I was and the best I could but I love her now, and I miss you I do, but I think you're here now not to check in on me, but somehow – so that I can say goodbye to you._

 

_I can't believe you'd -_

 

_Goodbye Rachael._

 

_Ram you can't -_

 

_Yeah I can._

 

Downstairs the doorbell rings and Tanya goes to answer it.

 

_Goodbye Rachael._

 

She comes back up, leading the others. Ram swings round in his chair to face them, beaming -

 

“Just one sec,” he says, swivels back to face the computer for one last little thing.

 

_You are no longer friends with Rachael._

 

He turns off the computer, stands up, walks over to April before she can say a word.

 

“Oh my god, should we all go away?” Tanya offers.

 

“Nah. I can say this in front of yous. April – I'm sorry. I've been a dick. I've been a dick pretty much forever and I might have been a dick my whole life but like – you happened? And I think you kinda saved me? I'm a better person because of you and and – can I kiss you before I start to sound any lamer?”

 

“Yeah,” April nods, eyes shining - “Better had.”

 

Tanya and Matteusz cheer and high five, Charlie smiles, the three of them like audiences at a play with a happy ending.

 

“All of you,” Ram adds, looking up from April. “You all make me a better person – cause that's what friends do too, right?”

 

“Group hug?” April whispers.

 

“Group hug!”

 

They shuffle together like penguins, arms around each others shoulders and heads bent in. They stand like that for a long time.

 

“Oh my god though,” April says from the middle of the pile. “That was sooo romantic, though? What you said? I think Mr Darcy said something really similar to Lizzie at the end of _Pride and Prejudice_ actually- Only I mean, he didn't say _dick”._

 

Before anyone can comment on this, Charlie's phone rings -

 

“It's Quill,” he says - “She says she just got a really weird random call, and does anybody know an Amy?”

 

-x-

 

Meanwhile, in what passes for a staff room in the the rooms of Ever Upward Reach, money is handed over as bets are made and lost. Most were certain that the Singh boy would be be lured by the dead-girlfriend-internet trick. Some of these same people had lost bets recently on whether or not Andrzejewski would be prepared to kill in extreme circumstances. Money has been lost and won in here ever since what they term the _Petal Experiment._ Worse than lost bets, however, is the fact that none of their experiments have proven gratifying in splitting the group apart. In fact, news just in implies that this latest attempt has resulted in, if anything, more group bonding than ever before. At this rate the whole lot of them will still be friends when The Arrival begins. More than one of the Governors has actually been seen to scowl at the threat these particular young people are posing.

 

There's a white board full of plans and the stakes are getting higher in more ways than one.

 

__x__

 

 

**Next week on Class: April and Ram spend a whole scene naked, Matteusz has nightmares, Tanya saves her brothers through the power of video games, a spaceship crash lands on the Barbara Wright building and somebody's parent dies for real and stays dead this time :-)**


	6. CHAPTER 6: I'LL WRITE YOUR NAME

 

**Episode 6: I'll Write Your Name**

 

“- and that's why she was so ahead of her time! I mean, I know people just hear the words _Jane Austen_ and are instantly bored, which really isn't fair when you consider how against the patriarchy she really was and how much she dared express it for her time, and- Ram? Ram, you're not even listening to me!”

 

“Yeah I am.”

 

“You're not though! You're on your phone!”

 

“Yeah okay, I'm not.” Ram puts his phone down and looks over at April with weary affection.

 

“Like, do I really look like I need to be in a conversation about Jane Austen? Is that the kind of person I am now?”

 

“We _are_ studying _Emma_ in English.”

 

“Yeah I saw that film. It was dull. I don't even _like_ Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean who does, right?”

 

“Ram!”

 

“What? God you're such a teacher's pet.”

 

“That's not fair. I haven't been a teacher's pet since Miss Oswald's English class in year ten. Now _that_ was a cool teacher – _she_ talked about Jane Austen with me - you felt like she really _knew_ her.”

 

“So go marry Miss Oswald.”

 

“I _can't -_ she mysteriously disappeared, remember. Like they all do. Why is this normal? Oh hang on a sec, my mum's on the phone. Mum? Mum you okay?”

 

Ram watches April's face go white, her voice getting quieter as she answers her mum, and he feels bad because his first thought is _shit now I can't tell her about that spaceship ­-_ the one he had just been reading about in the news that had crashed literally right into one of their school buildings. Only his second thought is, _shit, what's wrong?_ which is what he says when she hangs up, telling her mum she will be right over. For a moment she just stares at him blankly, her face telling him she has not processed or even _can_ process the information she is about to impart.

 

“My dad's dead.”

 

-x-

 

“I mean two options, really?” Charlie says, standing next to Matteusz at the crash site and looking at the wreck of the space ship and the smouldering remains of the Barbara Wight building - “maybe three – either the aliens are killing anyone they come into contact with and nobody's found the bodies yet, or the aliens are walking around the school and nobody's noticed yet, which given this school sounds -”

 

“Painfully plausible,” Quill finishes, coming up behind it. “Jesus what a mess.”

 

“And they only just finished that building.” Matteusz nods.

 

“I meant the spaceship?” Quill makes it sound as though only someone painfully stupid would not have known this.

 

“It is wrecked to bits,” Tanya nods, coming up not far behind Quill - “God, do you think they'd let us have a poke at it? Be fascinating.”

 

“Not for a single second,” Quill tells her - “And to hell with the wreckage, I mean the ship itself. Primitive, barely held together, no wonder they crashed. I wonder how they got off their own planet.”

 

“And who are _they?”_ Tanya frowns.

 

“Hell if I know,” Quill shrugs - “It's not like any ship I've ever seen.”

 

“Nor me,” Charlie adds - “I mean except on TV – it _does_ look like an actual flying saucer.”

 

“Well that was obvious.”

 

“Why? You know Quill, we may have declared an end to the Rhodian – Quill hostilities but -”

 

“You did?” Matteusz raises an eyebrow, half impressed.

 

“Few nights ago.” Charlie tries to wave it away. “I mean I'm the only Rhodian, she's the only Quill, but yes between us we managed an effectual cessation of dispute.”

 

“He said sorry,” Quill nods.

 

“Alright,” Charlie looks embarrassed - “You don't have to tell everyone. What I was going to say was why shouldn't I know just because you don't? I am still the superior species, remember?”

 

“My actual rectum,” Quill states, fairly placidly.

 

“You are both human now,” Matteusz sighs, carefully neutral after the number of times he has now heard this one - “Therefore your argument is invalid on both sides. Miss Quill, please do not say _rectum_ again?”

 

“Anus,” she amends.

 

“I wonder what _will_ happen with it though?” Tanya stares at the steaming pile of chrome and glass contemplatively - “I mean if they take it away, which they will? Who'll get it? Unit?”

 

“If the Governors don't get to it first. Whole thing might be a Governors set up, just like the bounty hunter,” Quill shrugs. She does not miss that Matteusz takes Charlie's hand and squeezes it tight when she says this. She suspects the two of them would be heartily embarrassed by how little she misses. Tanya's phone rings. She hangs up after a brief conversation with a deep sigh.

 

“April,” she says.

 

-x-

 

“I don't know,” April says for at least the dozenth time - “I don't know how to feel”.

 

She is sat around the table with her mother on one side and Ram on the other, she and her mother both holding the cups of tea Ram has made them tight in their hands as though for protection. She finds herself thinking how nice that was of him, how glad she is that he and her mum get on these days. She appreciates how much effort he has put into making her mum like him, and it's worked, it really has, which given her mum's initial objections says so much about Ram's persistence; and okay, though she won't admit it – actual charm. She feels happy about this, and feels bad about it.

 

“Like, I think I'm supposed to say _we didn't get on but he's still my dad?_ Or _let's play his music and remember the good?_ But I don't _want_ to say those things? Like I don't feel them? He was a dick -”

 

“April -” her mother starts.

 

“Well, he _was._ What would be the first thing you thought of?”

 

Her mother is silent for a moment, then she sighs.

 

“He was a dick,” she says - “But -”

 

“Oh no see? You're going to do that thing.”

 

“What thing?”

 

“The _oh but at first_ and _you didn't know him like I did_ and I – I don't think I _do_ want to hear it?”

 

“I mean no offence, either of you -” Ram interjects tentatively - “And shoot me down if I'm being out of order but I think yous both need to be talking about the other thing?”

 

“Other thing?” April raised a tired eyebrow.

 

“Yeah, what you said -” he gestures at her mum, because he does not want to say _Mrs MacClean or April's mum_ and first names are just weird - “About him, you know, _showing up dead at the house?”_

 

“See, that's the thing,” April's mum sighs - “He wasn't _dead_ as such – it was this strange faceless – _thing?_ Like something between a man and a robot?”

 

“So how do you know it was dad?”

 

“He was wearing his clothes and he had his ID and I mean, it just was? You're not the only one with instincts, you know, where do you think you get them from?”

 

“So maybe he's not _dead_ dead – maybe he could come back from it?”

 

“I don't know, April, I mean – there was _nothing_ there – he didn't know me – I don't know why he even came to the house, there was _nothing_ there – no personality, nothing.”

 

“I mean though -” April shrugs, she's not sure she knows herself or trusts her own feelings when it comes to her _father_ if that's even what she can consider him to be – and it always makes her prickly and sarcastic - “I mean did he _ever_ have those things? Personality, I mean.”

 

“April -”

 

“Oh don't _April_ me! You know it's true. Anyway Ram's right, that's not the point – where did he go?”

 

“Well, it was strange, he just stared at me for a while, then the eyes – I mean he had no face not really – just like a blank – even _mask_ isn't the right word but there were two little lights – like tiny bulbs where the eyes should be and they flashed red, and it just walked away.”

 

“Maybe it's something to do with the spaceship,” Ram offers.

 

“What spaceship?” they both ask together.

 

“The one that crashed into the Barbara Wright building. I was _trying_ to tell you when you were banging on about Jane Austen.”

 

“Shit. _More_ aliens? Does it never end?”

 

The doorbell rings.

 

“Nah,” Ram sighs, as April gets up heavily to answer it - “It never ends.”

 

It's the others, even Quill is with them.

 

“Please,” April's mother says redundantly as they all come in. “Pile in. Ram love, I think more tea is called for.”

 

 _Oh that's so sweet,_ April thinks, wondering at the same time why her thought processes are so inappropriate – _love._

 

“April,” Charlie says, and hugs her, and she is surprised and delighted by how natural it feels; he used to be so stiff and awkward hugging and she thinks how nice it is how much this has changed. Everyone's so nice. She loves her friends. They all hug her and don't try to speak and she is so grateful for that that she almost cries but she does not want to cry because she knows they will think it's for the obvious reason and she feels like a fake. She is not, she supposes, very good at this, but with _her_ dad – how can she be? Thank god none of them have told her they are sorry for her loss.

 

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Quill says sharply - “Now move on.”

 

They all turn to look at her.

 

“What?” She shrugs. “It's what you say, I saw it on TV!”

 

“Oh” Charlie nods - “April, I'm -”

 

“No,” she snorts laughter, _oh god_ she thinks. “Don't it's – it's really _not_ what you say. Did you see the crash site?”

 

“Yeah,” Tanya says. “ _Weird_ space ship – looks like something out of an old B movie? Like an actual saucer with a lump in the middle, basically -”

 

“It looks fake,” Quill shrugs. “Like that space pig the government knocked up years back.”

 

“Space – pig?” Charlie frowns.

 

“Really?” Quill frowns – none of you who lived here even know about that?”

 

“It _was_ fifteen years ago,” April's mum shrugs. “They were all toddlers – I don't think Tanya was even born – _I_ remember – was that a government conspiracy? Huh, I didn't even know.”

 

“I think we are getting a little off track here?” Matteusz suggests - “Look -” he waves his phone about - “There _have_ been alien sightings – and also death. Maybe death. People with no faces, they encounter people and then sometimes they become things with no faces too – sometimes not – it is not making all the sense.”

 

“Like dad?” April tries to peer over his shoulder at the phone, finds she cannot possibly peer that high and takes the phone off him - “Oh you're right. More and more reports and it's like -”

 

“Like they're spreading out from the crash site,” Quill looks on her own phone - “I'd say we should stick together – unpleasant though that is- but I have a kid at home I should get to so we're not actually gonna do that. Having said that – you two come with me.”

 

“Ugh. We are _not_ also your children, Quill.”

 

“Yeah, you think that, but in practice – come _on!”_

 

“We'll see you in school tomorrow?” Charlie twists round to ask the others as Quill herds him and Matteusz out.

 

“Yeah – if it's not populated by faceless blanks by then.”

 

“Thanks for that Ram,” April sighs.

 

“I guess I should go home too then?” Tanya shrugs.

 

“I'll drive you,” her mum nods.

 

With all of them gone April turns to Ram -

 

“Let me guess, you have to go home too?”

 

“Nah. I'm gonna call my dad, tell him where I am so he doesn't worry. You really think I'd leave you right now?”

 

“I'm not -”

 

“I know, I know, you don't need looking after, Jesus April, you think I'd not got that? Give a guy a chance to be a bit heroic sometimes?”

 

She smiles, leans into him, noses brushing -

 

“ _Fine._ There's a lock on my bedroom door now, you know. Anyway my mum apologised for how she used to just walk in. It's good. She really likes you now, you know that?”

 

“What can I say?” Ram grins - “My charm, baby.”

 

April rolls her eyes and kisses him anyway.

 

-x-

 

The first time the nightmare wakes him, Matteusz tries going back to sleep, but he is no sooner gone than there it is again – that man – nameless, but his face is becoming more familiar now through these dreams than the little he saw of him in life should give precedence for. There are only a few seconds in which he sees the man with Charlie, barely long enough to see what he is doing, but it has been enough to haunt his waking for weeks. He does not just chop the man's finger off, he flays it first, and it feels _right,_ it feels justified, he thinks he could go on forever just cutting bits off until there is nothing left of the bastard, but he wakes up heart racing after the first finger – his breathing so ragged it rips at his throat and comes out more in a groan than in breath and he squeezes his eyes shut and pulls at his hair until the pressure starts to calm his head, but he does not want to go back to sleep again this time.

 

Thank god Charlie _is_ asleep, this time at least, and the fact that he looks peaceful for once soothes his soul a little. Besides, he cannot talk to him about this anyway, cannot let him know the extent of the danger he was in; he really just is not sure Charlie could take it, a point on which Quill has concurred but all the same it feels so _wrong_ not to share with him he feels guilty, just not nearly as bad as he would if he did put this on him. He twists to kiss that sleeping golden head, and the little sigh Charlie makes in his sleep twists his heart for love and he knows - he feels a need to be reassured in this a lot lately – that this love has to be a good thing, no matter what it might make him do.

 

He places the duvet around Charlie carefully as he slips out of bed, and pats it down around him to keep him warm. He is not sure exactly how much he needs protecting; probably not nearly as much as he feels the need to do so – but maybe he does, it is so hard to judge. Sometimes Charlie seems so self assured, so very capable – more in fact than any of them – of taking charge and making decisions – then at other times he seems like a tiny child, barely capable of looking after himself. It is a mystery. Matteusz pads softly downstairs and into the kitchen, turning on the light to make hot milk.

 

“Oh bloody hell, not you as well,” comes a voice from the living room.

 

“Miss Quill?” he turns round - “Do you _ever_ sleep?”

 

“Believe it or not, you two aren't the only ones with nightmares, you know.”

 

“Do you want to talk a -”

 

“Hell no. Come here. Come on. Sit the fuck down and talk; you're going to anyway. Tell agony aunt Quill all about it, please do.”

 

“Would you – like a milk?”

 

“Have you ever thought about where milk comes from? It's disgusting's what it is. Yeah, alright.”

 

Matteusz takes the sofa; Quill puts down her book with a sigh.

 

“You know, when I dream about killing people those are my _good_ dreams.”

 

“How did you know I was- I mean I am not -”

 

“The hell you're not. You know it's not wrong to want to protect the ones you love.”

 

“Maybe like this it is.”

 

“Like what?” Quill peers at him closely. He gives up; he has been sitting on this for too long alone.

 

“In the dreams I am not only killing that man, I am torturing him.”

 

“Huh. Fun times.” She's not sure she really means it, actually, she does not approve of torture but she does understand anger, revenge, frustration; by god does she understand them.

 

“I am chopping off bits of him. Anything – any finger he lays on Charlie – anything he does to hurt him I am giving back ten times and I am _liking_ it – in the dream. I am angry, but I am glad to hurt him if he – if he so much as looks at my Charlie I am taking out his eyes -”

 

“Shiiiiit -” Quill whistles, eyeing him appraisingly - “I used to back off that boy for fear of the Arn. Looks like I was afraid of the wrong thing.”

 

“I would never – at least I don't think I would – I do not know. I don't _want_ to hurt anyone, but -”

 

“But someone touches your beloved, you rip them to pieces? You know, some people just call that love.”

 

“It is brutal.”

 

“Yes. You would make a good Quill.”

 

“A Quill and a Rhodian?” Matteusz raises an eyebrow, half smiling - “That would be quite a thing, I think.”

 

“Oh, trust me, a human and Rhodian is bloody bad enough – Quill and Rhodian? It would be like Romeo and Juliet with extra gore. Trust me.”

 

“Strangely enough, I do.”

 

“This is one helluva a family.”

 

“Yes,” Matteusz nods - “And yet, still better than my first one.”

 

“You know,” Quill says reflectively - “I remember when the young prince was born. We were already at war, had been since I was born. The Rhodians stopped fighting that day and the citadel bells rang from morning 'til night. You can't imagine the headache. We could have taken advantage and killed so many of them. But we're not barbarians. We sat back and let the bells ring and I thought, how do we kill him? The newborn, that heir to one of the worst Royal lines the Rhodians ever had – how do we kill him before he gets old enough to do any real damage? I never _ever_ thought I'd say I was glad we didn't get the chance, but – anyway you never saw anybody so protected - that kid had his own guard from day one, I don't think he ever got to be a real boy until the day he turned human and even with all that he wasn't as protected as he is now.”

 

She looks at Matteusz through eyes that he never realised until now saw so much so clearly -

 

“Is he?”

 

“I hope not.” Matteusz sips his milk - “Really? Bells all day? I am going to give him so much shit.”

 

Quill snorts.

 

“Call it a gift from me to you.”

 

Later, Matteusz will find it funny that he asks Quill what he asks her just at this point -  
  


“Miss Quill do you – this may sound like a strange question, but do you know who you are?”

 

“Oh my god, you humans! You're obsessed with that, aren't you? When you're not thinking about sex you're thinking about morality, trying to work out if you're good and bad – you know what? You're neither, however precious one of you thinks they are, however terrible – you're all just morally grey, how is it _that_ hard?”

 

“That is not _quite_ an answer.”

 

“Yes, I know who I damn well am. I think what you're trying to say, while pretending not to be self obsessed, is who are you?” Chomping on you, isn't it?”

 

“Is it that obvious?”

 

“Like a brick to the face. Let's see, you always assumed you were basically good, now you're not sure because if nothing else you knew you didn't kill people, but now that's all to hell and you're thinking, _did I know myself at all? Oh my god who am I? Who does these things? Am I a bad guy now?Blah blah blah what is love and what is it for?”_

## “Well without the piss taking, that is pretty accurate, yes.”

“Trust me you're still the same irritating kid you always were. Just because you don't know what you're capable of doesn't mean you don't know who you are. Nobody knows what they're capable of until tested. Now Quill get tested day they're born, you lot just fanny about for the first twenty years, hence the life long angst. Are we done with Agony – Quill now?”

“Sorry. Yes. I am sorry – only -”

“Oh god, there's more.”

“I hate that I am talking to you about this -”

“Oh, ta very much.”

“No I mean just – I should be able to talk to Charlie. There is so _much_ I cannot say now and it feels like deception -”

“Oh yes, because a little bit of you feeling uncomfortable is so much worse than his royal fragility knowing he nearly got sold as a sex slave to the scum of the universe, obviously -”

“I nearly _what?”_

Quill groans softly, closes her eyes and mutters, _of course, fuck my life, of course,_ and Matteusz jumps off the sofa, turning in dismay to see Charlie standing, blinking sleepily in the doorway and peering at them wide eyed, face crumpling.

Which, thankfully, is the point at which the locked door swings smoothly open and four blank – faced robotic looking aliens walk in, freezing all three of them with the yellowish glow of their eyes and paralysing them like rabbits caught in headlights.

-x-

At the same time, unknown to the rest of them, two similar robotic aliens walk into April's room, the sound of which wakes her and Ram up, and ten seconds later they find themselves similarly paralysed in that eerie yellow glare. Tanya barely has time to yell when she wakes up to see one looming close over her bed and then she's caught, the light entering her head and sweeping through it as though searching. It hurts, but she hardly has time to yell for fighting against the feeling that the light wants to sweep her clean, make her as blank as the rest of these things. It pushes against the very core of who she is, she can feel it, as though the essential _her-ness_ of herself is a monument to be pressed upon. Somehow she knows that if she knew herself less she would not be able to keep that monument standing, but _NO_ she thinks and she thinks it hard, pushing back against the light in her head. _NO I THINK THE HELL NOT,_ and she senses something – a feeling of loss, of disappointment from the thing invading as it detaches and breaks away, the light in its eyes going off and turning a dull red, and it's gone and she cannot help but think – _huh, an easy night for the bunghole squad then._

Then she hears the yelling from one of her brother's rooms, and has a brief moment in which to think – _or not then,_ before running out to see what's going on. She meets her mum in the hallway, who looks at her with wide eyes.

“Did you see them?” she asks.

“Them?” Her mum stares at her as though in shock, though not – it occurs to Tanya – nearly as much shock as she might have been a couple of months ago - “Robot alien things poking around in my head? So rude! I told them to get the hell out – my house, my head, I said, I do not damn well think so! You too?”

“Yeah,” she looks at her mum with some respect, one of those awkward moments, she supposes, when you realise how much you have in common with a parent after all - “Like – you have to know who you are to stop it taking all of that away? Oh my god!” she realises suddenly - “April's dad!”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she shakes her head quickly. “I think they're struggling -”

“Yes” Vivian agrees- “First the boys – then your friends.” They burst into Jarvis' room together, Damon is yelling -

“Fight it Jarvis! You gotta fight it!” and there is only one of the things left in the room, the other one walking carelessly past them, red eyed and neutral, but the one in front of Jarvis has him caught intently in a stare that looks like it is flickering between yellow and green – Tanya knows suddenly that they _really_ do not want that light to go green. Jarvis is sweating, grimacing, face scrunched up in concentration and she knows that face – she has seen it on Quill when she starts to fight – but she cannot imagine it – not really – not knowing who you are, cannot imagine it hard enough quickly enough to help -

“You have to know who you are!” she yells.

“I thought -” he talks painfully, through gritted teeth, not wanting to break concentration with the thing in his head - “Thought I did.”

“It is not who you want to be,” Vivian says - “It's who you _are._ They are not the same.”

“But I -” the Blank's eyes flicker green - “I _want_ them to be the same!”

“You're not dad!” Damon yells - “I get it J – I wanted to be too -”

“That doesn't have to be a bad thing!” Tanya says it as she thinks it, her inability not to voice her thoughts actually working for her for once - “You've got bits of dad we all do but like – it's like -” she cannot think fast enough for panicking, the one example she can think of seems lame but she throws it out anyway - “Like you know when we were playing _Call of Duty_ and Dad used to kinda panic when someone attacked him unexpectedly? He'd wave his arms around and then mash buttons like mad and he said it was cause he was tough and you used to laugh and say no it was cause he was scared then you'd grab the controls off him and make him run away and we'd all laugh and then you'd get him to safety so he could carry on?”

“Yeah!” Damon jumps in - “You did do that! And like when it was you playing you never played like that – you were always ready for attack so you never jumped out of your skin like dad and you were dead chill about it and we were like how the hell do you play without screaming and swearing -”

“And I used to tell you boys, and you Tanya, _stop all that language right now!_ But you'd say _it's life or death mum you try it!_ And I did and you laughed at me cause it was the only time you ever heard me swear -”

“And you were the best at it J -” Tanya picks up the thread - “You finished that game like weeks before the rest of us – and dad never finished at all because any time he tried to play you started waving your arms around like he did when he panicked and he laughed so hard and gave you so much shit -”

“Tanya!”

“Sorry mum – so much shit about it that he couldn't even play any more and he got in a sulk and turned off the xbox so we could all play Mario Kart and he could kick your ass.”

Jarvis's eyes flicker away from the Blank and holds Damon's gaze long enough for his brother to nod at him and put a hand on his shoulder -

“Yeah. That's you bro – you keep cool as hell under fire and we're all like _how the heck_ but you can't stay on the track on Rainbow Road to save your god damn life, man.”

Jarvis exhales so deeply Tanya can almost see the light in his head coming out of him in that breath and the Blank's eyes go red and it turns away from the group of them almost dejectedly, and Jarvis flops down onto his knees as they all run forward to catch him.

-x-

They reach Matteusz first, and then Quill. Matteusz thinks _how do they lock you in this light like this but without blinding you?_ Because this light – it is so bright it is like looking at the sun, so it should hurt but it does not. It feels like the light is trickling down through his brain, washing him out, yes that's it, it will wash all of him away if it can, leave him as blank as it is, just like April's dad, it's reading him – _scanning – that's what it's doing –_ he realises – _it's scanning me, seeing who I am, working out how well I know the answer to that myself – well I know it pretty damn well, thank you very much, I have fought against people telling me different all my life -_

\- and there is more, he knows, so much more that makes him who he is than simply having had to always assert those things but he does not need to think them consciously because just like that the light goes away – pulls out of him just in time for him to hear Quill yell -

“No you bloody don't, you little shit!” and she clutches at her head and he hears himself shouting too, because it _hurts,_ this invasion of light, it really does, as though it is something physical being shoved into the head and as roughly withdrawn and of _course_ Quill knows how that feels exactly and while they are shouting the Blanks in front of them turn away abruptly and walk out the door, red eyed.

“I AM SICK TO DEATH!” Quill yells - “OF ALIEN SHIT GETTING ITSELF INSIDE MY BLOODY HEAD!”

“Did it -” Matteusz is not sure how to frame what he wants to ask her there are so many parts to the question – _did it read you? Did it want to know who you were and how well you know that?_ For a brief crazy moment he wants to laugh, thinking about what they had been talking about just moments before; _do you know who you are?_ Well what a way to get an answer. Of course. Of course she knows. Anyway, the problem apparent in the room makes itself clear before he can ask and he turns, and so does Quill -

“Charlie?”

The third Blank is paused in front of him, its eyes flickering yellow – green, and Charlie is clenching his fists, clenching his _brain_ with the effort of fighting it. For a moment Matteusz thinks he can hear him talking but it is his voice, going _no no no no no no_ like he cannot help it because how can he stop this? How can he help? Of _course_ Charlie doesn't know himself, it's as obvious as it is that Quill _would_ know and _she_ is looking Charlie's way as well -

“Your – Highness?”

“Am I?” Charlie speaks quietly, quickly, like he is trying to get the words out, trying to help himself without breaking any of that mental concentration - “It's what I thought. How I always defined myself by what I was – my position, my responsibility – even if all that had not changed does that even tell me who I am? It – never seemed important on Rhodia – not to anyone but me but here – here I could be who I wanted to be if I knew what that was – Matteusz _help me – who am I?”_

Matteusz can feel the tightness that approaches panic in Charlie's chest as though it was his own and he cannot say he has never asked the question because after all how well do we ever know anyone? Of course he has wondered who this person is that he loves, if he knows him. He finds himself looking quickly at Quill, wondering what to say, if saying anything will help, if all those silly tiny details that feel to him like they make up a person are what Charlie needs to hear.

“You are - “ he falters - “You are Charlie Smith -”

“No good,” Charlie shakes his head- “Made up name. It wasn't always, it used to be -”

He says something that even Matteusz would have to guiltily admit he could not possibly pronounce and he notices that Quill says it too, almost under her breath and she nods as if remembering -

“Protector of his Realm. Shining Prince of the Rhodian High Citadel, Guardian of his People, Crown Ruler of the Northern Continents and Heir Apparent to the Southern Systems -”

“ _Heir to the South_ my arse,” Quill mutters under her breath -

“And so on and so on – but it doesn't tell me _anything_ and I'm not anyway, any more, and I just _don't know_ -”

“You are Charlie Smith,” Matteusz says again, more certainly. “You chose the name, that makes it more who you are than if you had not – you said you picked _Smith_ because the Doctor recommended it and you have like some kind of hero – crush on the Doctor and you said you picked Charles because it meant just _Man_ and also is the name of the highest prince in this country so it described you completely as both human and prince you said, and I said that was funny and basically your name means Mr Man Mc-human, and you said you _wanted_ to be human so why not?”

“But you're still all that Rhodian bullshit too,” Quill adds - “You can be both, you know. Who you are now and who you were, it's not an either – or situation.”

“You are you,” Matteusz nods - “You are kind, and clever, and you are always confused and you never stop questioning even when there are answers you do not wish to hear like about your people and how – how -”

“How they brainwashed you into thinking that their way was right even though it clearly isn't, and you fight against it when we question your morality even though you question it yourself though you won't admit it out loud because -”

“Because you are a good person -”

“- because you're an arrogant pompous arse with his head stuck so far up his butt I'm surprised it doesn't come out of your neck -”

“Miss Quill! Not helping!”

“I am! A person isn't only defined by the good in them, you know, and I'm sorry but your boyfriend is at least fifty percent an arse bag! At least! Maybe more!”

“And I do not care!” Matteusz takes Charlie's hand and holds it crushingly tight - “You are my arse bag and I love you and you love me and you are so sweet and so small sometimes and then at other times so terrifying and I wonder how you can fill a room so hugely with your presence when I have seen you sleep like tiny kitten. You make me laugh, and sometimes even when you mean to, and you are really good at drawing and that one time you gave me a sketch of an aardvark I carried it around in my wallet for a week because I did not have a photo of you and also because whenever you said you were no good at anything human I could wave aardvark at you. You like taste and sensation and that colour I do not know the name of but it is a kind of reddish – purple - and when things feel nice, even though you think you should not like these things because your parents let you think that what you wanted was not important and that you should not even have wishes just for yourself, and I am sorry Charlie but your parents were jerks and wrong so -”

“Yeah I second that, and you know you're sometimes a right jerk too and there's things you've said to me I don't think I can ever forgive and clearly you have emotional issues coming out the wazoo but for a Rhodian – god I never thought I'd say this – you're not the worst, alright?”

Charlie, who has been looking more and more at Matteusz and less at the Blank the whole time they have been talking, squeezes Matteusz's hand back for the first time and turns to face Quill, smiling ever so faintly -

“Careful, Quill -” he says, voice half lost in a rough whisper - “That's almost getting sentimental.”

Matteusz and Quill swoop in to catch him as he stumbles forward and the Blank breaks away, and when it turns round they can see its eyes go red.

“Wait -” Quill says, standing up within seconds and leaving Matteusz to hold on to Charlie -

“Weren't there four of them?”

-x-

“Ram!” Tanya bursts into April's room to find what she expected – two of the Blanks in front of the two of them, two sets of fighters locked in battle. Her mother and April's hang back just outside the door.

“It wants your personality!” she yells - “It wants to suck it all out and make you blank – you have to tell it who you are.”

“I – don't -” Ram cannot even turn his face, cannot get more words out and his face is wet with tears from the fear and the fight.

“Oh come on!” Tanya yells, looking to April for help, but April is caught with her own only the fight looks different – it's hard to tell from features that are locked so steadily in mental war but it seems to Tanya as though it is April staring the Blank down and the Blank's expressionless face which is flickering, the eyes turning all colours in quick succession.

“April?” April's mother peers through, wondering like Tanya what the hell is going on with her.

“She'll be fine!” Tanya calls back - “April knows who she is – I think she's hurting it more than it's hurting her! Come and help me with Ram! Come on Ram -” she turns back to him as April's mum joins her -

“You're our friend, you're brave and loyal and nowhere near as dumb as you think you are and that's from me okay? Like you always go _oh my god Tanya, this problem's impossible?_ And then I start to break it down and you're like _yeah alright you don't have to patronise me –_ cause you know way more than you think you do and sometimes you think that we don't know that because we see you as some sort of dumb jock, but like, _none_ of us think that? Cause you – oh I get it – you based who you were on that sporting guy jock thing, didn't you? And now you can't be, but like – Ram seriously mate, you never really were?”

“She's right, Ram,” April's mum nods. “First time I saw you – I mean I was appalling to you, I know, and I shouldn't have come in on you both in the first place, I know that now, and even though you must have been thinking it yourself at the time you were nothing other than completely respectful to me and more than respectful to April because that's who you are – gentle and respectful and I know neither of those are cool things to be but you're like – you're like April – you're kind?”

“And you pretend not to be,” Tanya adds - “Cause you're cool, at least you think you're cool but like we're kids? We all wanna be cool? That don't really mean anything when you think about it? I mean Ram you're basically like just this big softie who cares too much about everything and feels everything really hard? And you need help with stuff – like from me with maths and April to rescue you, but that's okay? Because we're here -”

“And you're here for us? Like earlier today when you just made us all tea without asking, that's _you_ Ram, not all the crap that you think is you, and oh my god April -”

“April?” Ram turns his head slowly, with effort, but the eyes of his Blank flicker orange and then red as he stares at her - “What the hell?”

April towers over the Blank in front of her, scimitar in each hand, her eyes glaring red and her skin crackling with black – half human half shadow at the same time, and the Blank warps, ripples and starts to melt at her feet and she drops the weapons without ever having to use them. The Blank walking away from Ram ripples but does not collapse, and April sags; Ram, weak himself, catching her, Tanya and April's mum both bombarding her to tell them what happened.

“I think I – confused it to death?” April manages a weak laugh - “Like it couldn't hurt me because I know who I am but I think _it_ didn't? Like the Shadowkin part of me was too much for it to deal with, and it couldn't stay alive or whatever it is – _kind of_ alive, I guess? For not knowing? It feeds off your personality and when it's gone it recruits you to being one of them and it can only feed off you if you don't know who you are, right? Like dad. He must have been _easy_ for them -” she cannot keep the slight sneer out of her voice but at the same time - “I _was_ angry though? With them, for killing dad and when it couldn't figure out who I was it must have choked on all that anger -”

“What about the other one though?” Tanya frowns thinking - “It kind of – like they were connected – when you killed that one the other one _rippled.”_

“They _are_ connected,” April nods - “Like I think – I think if it could choke harder on something – like if there was something out there more complicated than I am? It could kill the whole lot of them?”

She turns to her mum and grins -

“So you – you like Ram now, then?”

“Oh my god, priorities!” Tanya rolls her eyes - “Like now that yous are safe can we talk about the technicalities of sleeping naked when there might be aliens at any time?”

“Ah -” says Ram.

“Oh,” says April.

“Shit,” they say in unison.

-x-

“Ballon!” Quill yells and runs up the stairs, unable to believe she put all of her energies into saving bloody Charlie (for how many times did this make it?) before thinking about her child? (her _other_ child, her brain amends snidely.) For once, she breaks the first rule of parenting (at least it is one of her first rules of parenting, and has been she realises since long before Ballon) and bursts straight into her son's room. She cannot believe the noises had not carried down earlier but inside a Blank is _screaming_ or making a sound a lot like screaming whilst in front of it the shape shifter changes itself unendingly, completely incapable of staying still, and each new form roars or shrieks or clatters at the thing attacking it and Quill leaps between them but only for a second as Charlie and Matteusz leap in and drag her out of between the two.

“What are you doing? It's hurting him!”

“Yes!” Matteusz nods - “Ballon is hurting the Blank, let him carry on!”

“WHAT?”

“We got a message from Tanya,” Charlie talks as quickly as breathlessness permits - “April killed one of them by confusing it with her Shadowkin self. Tanya thinks that something as unreadable as Ballon might destroy the whole shipful of them.”

“It's HURTING him!”

“Mum!” Ballon groans, human for a second, flicking through a different human form with each word - “I. Got. This!”

If anything he seems to speed up, form after form after form in a blur that hurts their eyes until the air is filled by the sound of hundreds of Blanks screaming all over Shoreditch until the one in front of them explodes and melts away.

“Did you want me?” Ballon grins at them all widely, sitting down heavily on the bed.

“Cocky little shit,” Quill nods her head at him, half smiling, definitely proud - “Right – bed, the lot of you! I am done with you kids for one night!”

-x-

“I knew he'd do it,” Tanya says, as the five of them stand looking at the mess that used to be the Barbara Wright building.

“Wonder who took the ship away?” Ram kicks bit of rubble.

“Governors,” April shrugs.

“Do you think this was another of their schemes?” Charlie wonders aloud.

“I don't know about the rest of you, but I am becoming very sick of these schemes,” Matteusz nods.

“At least we all know who we are now,” Tanya shrugs - “And we know we can fight them. Hopefully they're getting just as sick of us as we are of them.”

As the others trail away from the crash site Charlie and Ram lag behind.

“Do we?” Charlie says musingly, watching the play of light across the broken glass and rubble. He sees rainbows and diamonds and teeth and danger. It seems to him he can see so much of where they have been and he fears what is to come in the shapes, light and shadow playing amongst the destruction.

“What?” says Ram - “Know who we are? I dunno. If it hadn't been for Tanya -”

“If it hadn't been for Matteusz and Quill!”

“Ugh,” Ram shudders - “Can you imagine it though? Being just – blank like that?”

“Kind of” Charlie sighs - “Back when I was on my planet – when I just did what I was told and I didn't have the choice to do or be what I wanted – I shut myself off so hard from my own wishes it was a little like – I suppose only a little.”

“I've never done anything _but_ chase after what I wanted,” Ram sighs a little too - “But then – sometimes what I wanted turned out not be what I wanted so I dunno if that's any better than not having the choice in the first place.”

“Choice is always better,” Charlie says firmly - “Being human – I think I like it? I might start looking into it – my human identity I mean.”

“Yeah, 'cause that's a normal thing to say.”

“I'm not sure being normal is the same as being human?”

“Starting to think it might be the opposite, yeah. Hey – you wanna look into it? Remember you' re not just human, you're British, posho!”

Ram thumps Charlie on the arm and grins.

“So tea and crumpets then?” Charlie frowns - “I like them and - Ram?”

“What?”

“Can you explain football to me?”

“Yeah, next time I have a week to spare? Do you think we ought to know better?” He realises this is an abrupt change in subject but it's no weirder, he thinks than the fact that he seems to be having an actual conversation with Charlie in the first place.

“Better than what?”

“Like all the others – they all seemed to know who they were no problem, got it sorted like – I still don't think I gotta clue – like -we got out by the skin of our teeth didn't we? Not because we know who we are, but because we have people who care who know us well enough to save us.”

“You think we should have worked ourselves out by now?”

“I dunno, we're seventeen aren't we? Do we have to have figured it out already, and when we do can't it change? Like am I the same as I was five years ago? Nah. So I dunno who I'll be in another five years or who I am now – it's a work in progress innit?”

“There's time,” Charlie nods. “I think we'll get there – who we are, it _is_ always changing, so it's always a work in progress and that's okay – I don't think – I don't think I'm even ready to be finished yet? And that's okay.”

“It is,” Ram nods. “It's alright.”

They walk for a moment slouching, hands in pockets.

“Posho – in a friendly way – right?”

__x__

  
  


**Next week on _Class:_ Quill gets a key the day before she asks for it after asking for it the day after she got it, stake – out at Wester Drumlins, Tanya proves that supporting crummy local dvd stores is better than netflix, Sally Sparrow saves the day or she would if the Arrival hasn't already begun, alien invasion, a brand new Doctor and uh basically – End of the World. Oh and it's all April's fault for saying how nice things had been going recently. **

  
  


  
  


 


	7. Chapter 7

  
  


**Episode 7: It Got Away From Me, Yeah.**

  
  


“Well I'm going,” April nods - “Definitely. So Ram, that means you're coming too.”

“Ugh. _Does it_ though? I mean really, do I look like a _Pride_ kinda guy?”

“You don't have to be gay, you know.” Tanya rolls her eyes at him, getting in there before Matteusz can - “ _I'm_ going. My mum'll expect an essay, but I think I'd want to anyway? I wonder if they'll let me take notes?”

“Yes, because it is absolutely fine to gather information on the behaviour of the funny gays.”

“You're getting more sarcastic, you know that? Is Quill rubbing off on you?”

“Ugh thanks Tanya, now I've got an image.”

“Shut up Ram. Looks like we're all coming with you then,” Tanya nods for all of them. Matteusz wonders if he is not beginning to regret asking them all if they want to join him and Charlie for London Pride in July.

“Okay but you ain't getting me in no glitter eye make up, alright?”

“Is that really such a thing?” April twirls a bit of blossom in her fingers from the tree they have been sat under, wondering if petals will ever stop being scary again at the same time as sighing happily because it really is feeling like spring now.

“Oh yes,” Matteusz nods. “Charlie has asked for glitter rainbows and unicorn face dust.”

“Wow,” Ram nods - “This is – my fault, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Matteusz nods benignly. “Ever since you told him about Britishness being a part of who he is, he is embracing that, and also the gay identity. It is a wild ride. He is this close to Union Jack boxers.”

April splutters and Tanya voices both their thoughts aloud -

“Yeah, needed that image. Speaking of which, where _is_ Charlie?”

“Gone out to draw some London landmarks. He is also embracing his artistic side. I tell him he is too young for a mid life crisis, but when he is determined he is determined.” Matteusz shrugs - “He has also allocated himself a date of birth.”

“He – doesn't know when his birthday is? Thought we were all s'posed to be clever.”

“Apparently the calender system on Rhodia is so different to ours it is hard to make equivalent to even a time of year? He said the Doctor told him he was the equivalent of a human seventeen year old, but this is all he knows.”

“Yeah, but – seasons?” Tanya frowns, already trying to chart a course of alien understanding through her head.

“He said he was born in the month of the silver leaves, only silver translated to a sort of purple – grey, and a month ran more like forty earth days, also a Rhodian day is -”

“Oh god okay, we get it.”

“You really don't.” Quill drops onto a bench beside them - “Trust me. When a single second's not the same length on another planet, any other calculation of greater time becomes impossible – even for you, Tanya. Don't forget to tell 'em about the bells, cause then we can _all_ have fun pissing off Charles.”

“So when were _you_ born, Miss Quill?”

“Season of the ripe fruits – actually easier to make a comparison to than any of the others, and no before you ask, I cannot with this birthday business. Save it for his Royal Giftedness, but do remember that his Majesty's birthday celebrations traditionally involve a four hour – that's by your standards before you ask Tanya – four hour procession of offerings and another nine hours of speeches and poetry in his honour.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, that's not happening. I might like – get him a pencil and a wedgie.”

“Or the bumps?”

“The bumps is evil and unnecessary torture.”

“Yeah? You've never sat through any Rhodian speeches. Why am I hanging out with you again?”

“You are becoming the cool teacher,” Matteusz nods.

“Gross. Okay, I'm gone.”

“Is it just me or are things really _nice_ at the moment?” April sighs happily.

“Why would you say that April, oh god why?” Ram wails, laughing at the same time. April throws blossom in his face.

-x-

As Quill strides away she hears the sound of feet running behind her and as she turns someone runs in beside her, slipping something cold and small and metallic into her hand and running past before Quill has even the chance to not take it.

“Hey!” she yells, and the figure stops – a small blonde woman in a long grey coat who scrunches her face up and shrugs apologetically -

“Can't explain!” she yells - “not yet! Soon though tomorrow actually – trust me I'm – nah -” she breaks off, shakes her head - “Too cheesy, can't say that. Just trust me. You need this!”

And just like that she runs off again, leaving Quill staring after her, looking up and down from what looks a bit like a curiously shaped key in her hand -

“ _Doctor?”_ she frowns.

-x-

“Can I see?”

Charlie hands his sketchbook over, feeling a curious flush of pride and trying to stop himself from smiling, happy with himself, happy with everything actually. Because here they are, the whole house in the front room, he and Matteusz on the sofa, Quill in her armchair with a book and Ballon on the floor in front of the Playstation which he is – unfairly according to everyone else – good at on account of being able to add himself extra fingers, thumbs and even appendages when necessary.

“Never let him near a Wii,” as Matteusz muttered when he first saw Ballon play.

It's strange, Charlie thinks, strange for this to feel normal. He is not sure how to describe it and when they talked about it, Matteusz said it was easy enough to describe, and he called it _family._ Charlie has thought this over and over until he tired himself out with the questions even more than he tired out Matteusz. He is still not entirely sure what humans mean by family, but whatever it is, it sounds nicer – and he thinks this guiltily, just like everything he thinks with regards to Rhodia is tinged with guilt these days – but it does sound nicer than what his people called family. When he thinks about where he would be, what he would be doing if his people had not been destroyed the first thing he always feels now is a deep sense of relief that he does not suppose he will ever be able to stop beating himself up about.

“KILL IT!”Quill shrieks suddenly, but she does this so often they are hardly even startled any more.

“KILL IT IT'S GOT TOO MANY LEGS!”

“God mum chill, it's just a frostbite spider!”

“It shot venom at you!”

“It's tiny, see? And it's dead now, and also like – it's pixels? You wanna kill stuff, you play!”

“I am war itself, brat -”

“Mmmmhmm,” Matteusz nods long and slow - “She is. She is war itself.”

“War,” Charlie echoes - “It's actual self.”

“Oh shut up you two, you three in fact– I am a real fighter you rotters I am not gonna pretend to be some fictional dragon- kin -”

“Dragon _born_ mum, goddddd.”

“- and run around slaying the bad pixels.”

“You'd like it.”

“It's true. You know these are really very very good.”

Charlie blushes, he cannot help it. Matteusz beams, he is still _so_ cute when he blushes.

“Where did you find all these? The statues?”

“Er – some old derelict house out – Wester Drumlins I think it was called? It was really odd actually? Like the statues – all these angels I drew? It didn't look like there were so many at first but the more I went around the more I seemed to see? All the same sort of thing but in different positions?”

“They look – familiar? I think there used to be some like this at my parents church – but recently they all disappeared, I do not know for why -”

“Give me that.” Quill, scowling suddenly comes over and grabs the sketchbook out of Matteusz's hands.

“Okay, these are Weeping Angels and you didn't even notice?”

“What?”

“What _what_ your useless highness? You never heard of Weeping Angels? Do you even know how much danger you've just been in?”

Charlie has to bite back a quick retort that he would regret making and they would all regret hearing about how he has been recently kept unaware of a lot of the danger he has been in, though he understands why they did and it's fair and actually after all – he was not as damaged by it as they or even he thought he would be, because, as he had said to Matteusz when they finally got the chance to talk about it – Matteusz had rescued him from those dangers and he was coming to believe that he always _would._ He swallows it down and manages only a slightly snappish -

“ _How_ much?”

“Okay fine,” Quill sighs, stands up, wonders when she acquired a Teacher – Mode, and groans at herself internally for it - “Crash course. Weeping Angels -” She holds up Charlie's sketchbook as illustration. Even Ballon has paused his game to watch her -

“Cool,” he interjects.

“No talking in class! Weeping Angels, as not entirely incompetently drawn by Charles here, are one of the oldest species in the universe, supposedly here since the dawn of time yada yada yada, one of the loneliest and consequently what?”

“Most – dangerous?” Charlie hazards.

“Ten points to Slytherin. Weeping Angels. Absolutely harmless, incapable of moving as long as something is looking at them.”

“So we – If we see them we keep looking yes? Does not sound so difficult.” Matteusz shrugs.

“Really. Not difficult. Are you part snake?”

“Huh?”

“Snakes. No eyelids. Don't need to blink – okay convoluted way of getting to the major point. You blink, they move, they touch you, you're gone.”

“Dead?”

“Not necessarily. Though they can and do kill. Mostly they send you back in time and feed on your wasted lifeline while you get to live out your life from the point you were sent back. But they _can_ just snap your neck and talk in your voice. Basically. They're dangerous and if there's some nearby that's something we probably need to deal with. Tomorrow's Saturday. I suggest you whip up the scoobies -”

“We are _not_ the scoobies.”

“Buffy is sooooo outdated.”

“Don't roll your eyes at me young man, you're six months old. You don't get opinions on _Buffy._ I like Spike.”

“The _point,_ Quill?”

“Get the gang together and tomorrow we go on a field trip to Wester Drumlins.”

-x-

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Tanya groans outside the gates to the crumbling old house.

“Why not? We came with you when _you_ had a creepy old house to stake out?” Charlie says.

Ram snorts. “ _Stake out?_ This is a cop show as well now?”

“Yeah,” Tanya ignores Ram - “And that's exactly why I can't believe I'm helping you with this. You guys weren't exactly helpful if you remember.”

“I personally got the night watchman's job so I could help you!”

“Yeah – _after_ our first visit in which all you two did was -”

“Ah yes,” Charlie reddens. “I remember.”

“On the kitchen table,” Tanya adds for ammo.

“So,” April decides to deflect - “What are we looking for again?”

“We told you last night -”

“Not really,” says Tanya - “All you said was “Come to the creepy old house on Wester Drumlins tomorrow, Quill says there's something going down.”

“I did _not_ say _going down?_ What does that _mean_ anyway?” Charlie complains.

“What's the monster of the week?” Ram translates for Tanya.

“These.” Quill holds Charlie's sketch book up. “Weeping Angels -”

“Am I _ever_ getting my book back?”

“Wait, what?” Tanya stops dead. “Weeping angels? I've heard of those?”

“Well thank god somebody has. I was starting to think the whole lot of you were -”

“No shut up, this is weird though? Okay.” Tanya takes a deep breath - “So I saw this thing the other day, like a _really_ weird easter egg on one of my DVDs -”

“Ooh, what were you watching?”

“Really not the point Ram. It wasn't even relevant to the movie or anything, like it looked old and really badly shot but there was this girl in it – Martha, she used to go to our church – so I was like _what the fuck_ and I kept on watching and this guy – so this is gonna sound weird, but he was talking about Weeping Angels and the blue box that was a time machine – I mean – TARDIS, right? How many phone – box time machines can there be?”

“Oh you'd be surprised.”

“Shut up Quill,” says Charlie benignly. “You don't know either.”

“And like I _know_ he didn't look like the Doctor - like completely different guy –“

“Yeah, the Doctor can do that.”

Quill looks sideways, ever so slightly shiftily for a second and nobody notices except Matteusz.

“But I think it _was_ still the Doctor? I mean to be honest, he didn't say anything really useful – not about what these Angels wanted, or what they did – just not to blink – he said that a lot – don't blink – and now here you are telling me we're going looking for Weeping Angels -”

“Yeah,” Quill nods - “Who here's good at not blinking?”

“Excessive blinking is a nervous habit. I am _pretty_ good in staring contests,” Matteusz shrugs.

“Okay good you stay near Charlie, he's useless -”

“Hey!”

“Tanya, you stay near Ram -”

“Hey!”

“I'm practically a snake, so all of you stay near me; we don't split up and if we see any statues we all keep our eyes on it at once - right?”

“Right,” - five _rights_ come back to her before Quill opens the gate and they walk nervously out into the overgrown grounds.

“How comes nobody's torn this place down yet?” Ram looks up at the mouldering house.

“Listed probably,” April nods - “It _is_ kind of beautiful.”

“That's what I thought! I was drawing for _hours_ yesterday and I didn't get even half of the good bits -”

“Yeah not going to either, I am _not_ going back into the past to rescue you.”

“You do know it's been a long time since you've been under any obligation to rescue me, Quill?”

“Oh, how I remember. Happy happy days.”

“Shut up, you two.”

“You get to tell her to shut up?” Ram raises an eyebrow half impressed - “She's a _teacher.”_

“She is -” Matteusz shrugs.

“I'm a bloody mother hen to the lot of you, that's what I am. Now shut up, before I eat my young.”

“Do – Quill do that?” Tanya asks nervously.

“Other way round.”

“Is it just me or are we _not_ seeing any angels?”

“Maybe we're just not looking hard enough.”

“No I am good at looking at things and there is nothing here.”

Half an hour later they trail back to the house gates.

“So basically yeah,” Ram says - “Nothing here. Just some creepy writing from the Doctor to some god knows how long ago bint called Sally Sparrow. Still that's gotta be a good thing, right?”

“Not necessarily,” says Quill.

“They were _definitely_ here before,” Charlie nods. “Hence the drawings.”

“Which means they're somewhere else,” Quill nods - “Okay -”

“Wait!” Tanya holds up a hand - “Sally Sparrow! And the shop I got that DVD from, _Sparrow and Nightingale_ it was called. Cause it looks old that shop, like it's kinda dying and sometimes you gotta support local businesses, right? Cant always just go to HMV – plus they have some weird shit in there sometimes, like the good stuff?”

“Waiting for the relevance.” Quill taps her foot impatiently, glances at the time on her phone.

“ _Meaning,”_ Tanya snaps, “that this Sparrow girl might work at that store, or at least someone there might know her and she might be able to help? Like if she was here however long ago maybe she knows more about these angels than we do?”

“Okay makes sense. Not a bad idea. Okay you, Ram and April you head over to the store, see what you can find out. We're going to school.”

“It's Sunday,” Charlie protests. “And why us.”

“Fine okay, we are _breaking in_ to the school? Sound more tempting now? And I just have a hunch we need to be there today. Just a hunch.”

“You know something?” Matteusz makes it sound like a question but it is not a question.

“Yeah. Yeah I might know something. I might know that it's time to break into those Governor Offices we're not allowed to break into and much as I hate to say it you two are best able to help me with that – _and -”_ Quill remembers to take a breath - “something else I'm not telling you yes. Happy? Okay let's go.”

-x-

“Really?” Ram peers up scowling at the crumbling front of _Sparrow and Nightingale -_ “You shop _here?_ I'd stick to HMV or you know – Netflix. The good stuff.”

“Shut up Ram. April and I can do this on our own if you're going to be rude to people.”

“Just – y'know – getting it out there before I'm rude to real people, not you,” Ram shrugs. “Alright boss?”

“Right,” Tanya glares at him. “April, you wanna do the talking?”

“I can do the -”

“April, you wanna do the talking?”

“Fine.”

“Hi!” April puts on her best smile and bounces up to the man behind the desk - “Do you know where we might find Sally Sparrow?”

“Sally?” he frowns - “Who's asking?”

They look at each other.

“Ah,” April says

“Yeah,” Tanya mutters - “Should have thought that one through – look -” she cuts in - “It'll sound really weird if we try and explain the whole thing but like I got a DVD from here the other day with a hella weird easter egg on it and end off we found her name on a wall in an old creepy house and we need to see her about -”

“About some – um – statues that used to be there?” April hazards - “We thought she might know something about -” she stops, seeing how pale the man has gone.

“ _Used to be there?”_ He stares at April for a moment in horror - “They're -” he gulps - “ _Gone?_ Aww, that can't be good, that can't be good at all.”

“What I said right.”

“You know about the Weeping Angels?” April frowns.

“Oh, christ,” he groans - “Yeah. Fuck me, yeah. Years ago though – only Sally never did let it go. Yeah, she'll wanna see you and you'll wanna see her. She's over at Blue Box Gallery on Devon Street, it's just round the corner, if you run you'll catch her, she'll be just packing up for the day. Should we -” he looks from one to the other rather wildly. “Should we be like, getting out of town?”

“We'll get back to you,” Tanya yells as the other two head out the door.

-x-

“I cannot believe you did that.” Charlie blinks at the door as Matteusz pulls it to something that looks like closed.

“Oh I only kicked it a little. Hardly even broken. What would you do, ask it nicely to unlock?”

“Well but -”

“We're _breaking in_ you moron, did you really think that was possible without _something_ getting broken?”

“Oh alright. Now when are you going to tell us what you know?”

“When I've called the Doctor.”

“The _Doctor?”_

“Don't give me that face, I don't know why either, I just know that I do and I think I know why. Right you -” she prods Matteusz - “Just check that door isn't open, we'd feel like the most incredible pillocks if after this it just swung open.”

He checks it.

“Locked. We did check it many times.”

“Still. I have a stunningly bad feeling about all this.”

Quill takes out her phone -

“Doctor? Yeah, me again -”

“ _Again?”_ Charlie mouths, frowning, behind her, Matteusz shrugs at him in return.

“Yeah it _is_ you, isn't it? Knew it, I bloody knew it – that is kind of brilliant! Hah! So we need you like yesterday. Actually yesterday if I'm not mistaken. And also today. Now. But you probably knew that too – right bye. Okay -” she takes a deep breath, turns to the boys - “Any minute now. You _do_ know about Time Lords and regeneration right?”

“Yes of course – he's regenerated? How did you -”

“I do not – what?”

A familiar deep reverberating whooshing sound.

“Ah well,” Quill shrugs. “You're about to find out.”

“Ah,” the Doctor says, stepping out the TARDIS as it materialises just a couple of metres away from them - “Yes. You lot. Missed you. Ballsed things up a bit there, but look at you! Still doing that thing you do, protecting the Earth for me, patching up the bunghole – oof, that sounds bad – your friend Tanya told me back when I was still all, y'know -” she knits her eyebrows together and pulls the grumpiest face she can manage. “- Sorry guys, yeah probably does need a better name. Chasm of time?”

“That's what I said!” Charlie grins, feels himself bounding forward to shake hands, realising as he does so that it might not be the thing to do, but the Doctor takes his hand and shakes it enthusiastically all the same - “It's good to see you, Doctor, but I have to say you're -”

The Doctor rolls her eyes, puts her hands on her hips and waits.

“So very much shorter,” Matteusz nods in faint shock.

“I was going to say _younger.”_

“Aww bless you both, you really were, weren't you- and there I was expecting something far more obvious. Bless. Really.”

“What, nobody _is_ going to say it?” Quill raises an eyebrow.

“Urggggghh,” the Doctor groans.

“ _Blonde,”_ Quill nods. The Doctor snorts.

“Okay so. I gave you a key yesterday.”

“You did?” Charlie frowns.

“She did,” Quill nods.

“Guessing it's for here – _Ever Upward Reach, eh?_ Heard about them, been around a long time, school governors for a lot less of that time though. Last I heard they were an evil pseudo religious organisation, more or less human, worshipping the Weeping Angels and attempting to clear them a path to colonisation of Earth; course this was about fifteen hundred years ago in ancient Rome and that's just the most recent I got from them. Thought they'd given up centuries ago,. Having said that I got one hell of a funny phone call – thank you Miss Quill – from a couple of old friends which might suggest to me that they're back to their old tricks – okay, shall we?”

She bounds forward, waving her sonic at the door. Nothing happens.

“Yeah didn't think so,” she shrugs. “Worth a try though, am I right? So okay, here's my guess, one of you -” she looks from Charlie to Matteusz - “Is really very clever and can more or less tell me what the key that opens this door looks like?”

“It was – long?” Charlie frowns, trying to remember back. Quill rolls her eyes.

“Really long,” Matteusz nods, “with the – teeth do you say? They were shaped like a Roman number.”

“They were? I didn't notice.”

“You were – distracted -” Matteusz gives Charlie's hand a quick squeeze and they both suddenly remember that last time they were here - “So was I but it was an odd key and I remember – and later I am looking up the Roman and the number is 1017”.

“Is that – the number - is it relevant?” Quill frowns.

“Only in a rather meta, cross fandom, _look–what–_ _the–author– did -there_ kind of way,” the Doctor shrugs. “You're good.” She beams at Matteusz - “I like you. Can you make me one out of – hang on a tick, let me look -” she rifles in her pockets, throwing aside books, string, a yo-yo, half a packet of custard creams and a ball of multi-coloured wool. “Pipe cleaners?” she tries eventually. Matteusz takes them gingerly.

“Y-yes,” he nods - “This I think I can do.”

“Brilliant. Okay, you make me this, Quill you let us in with the one I made you yesterday based off this one he's making me right now.”

“This hurts my head,” Charlie whimpers as Quill opens the door.

-x-

“Sorry,” the lady says as Tanya, Ram and April run up to the art studio's closing doors - “We're closing.”

“Are you Sally Sparrow?”

“Who's asking?” she says, just like the man in the shop did.

“It's about – are those photos yours?” Tanya catches a glimpse of the large prints on the walls of the first room.

“Yeah, some of my oldest, first ones actually, the better stuff's further in but you always have nostalgia for your early stuff, however bad, right?”

“Those are Wester Drumlins. You _are_ Sally Sparrow! We really need to speak to you, we've just been there and -” Tanya stops, remembering how shocked the other guy had looked when she mentioned the lack of angels.

“And I don't know if this means anything to you, and it might be bad news if it does -” April picks up where Tanya left off - “But we've just been out there and the angels are gone.”

Sally puts her hand to her mouth. It occurs to April that while girls do this a lot in books she has never seen anyone do it in real life before.

“ _Gone?”_ She stares at them unblinking. “The angels are gone?”

“Yeah, we thought that might be bad,” Ram nods, like he had said this from the start.

“Oh, you don't even -” Sally shakes her head, opens the door for them - “You better come in.”

“Actually -” April looks at her phone and then back at them apologetically -

“I gotta go? Ram? You're still coming right?”

“Wait what?” Tanya frowns at them - “You're leaving me to this? Why?”

“It's – my Dad's funeral,” April shrugs, apologetic again - “I already missed the service but I promised my mum I'd be there for the wake.”

“You should have said something!”

“It's um – it's fine – but I gotta -”

“Yeah! Yeah of course you go -” Tanya shoos them away - “Have a good – I mean – I hope it's – oh hell – just – y'know -”

“Tanya it's fine,” April smiles at her and gives her a hug - “Just keep us posted?”

“Okay.”

“Complicated times huh?” Sally smiles at Tanya as they go inside.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“Actually I might,” Sally nods - “Believe it or not. You should have met me when I was a teenager – actually scratch that I was the worst – you know what I said once to my best friend? _Being sad is happy for deep people,_ right? How edgy can you be? But -” She gives a little half shrug Tanya finds quite endearing in a white kind of way - “You grow up right?”

“So they tell me yeah. So – angels?”

“Okay.”

Sally goes to the back of the office/ studio room, rifling through a bunch of art holdalls up against the wall, bringing one back and laying it out on the table.

“You saw the Doctor's video right? You've been out to Wester Drumlins? So, Larry always told me I should forget about it -”

“Larry? That guy at the video store?”

“Yeah. He was there. Saw it all – well, almost all.”

“You two are -”

“What?” Sally laughs - “Me and Larry? Nah. Maybe for a little bit, just after it all happened but yeah – another thing we grew out of. Teen romance is not forever, right?”

“I know a couple of couples might disagree with you,” Tanya murmurs. “Anyway.”

“Sure, anyway. I didn't forget about it, did I? I mean I didn't make it my whole life as you can see -” she gestures round at the photography exhibition - “But I've kept an eye on the statues my whole life; all the London statues, and not just London -they've cropped up all over the place, graveyards and cities all around the world. I even have this theory about the statue of Liberty that Larry thinks is _completely_ stupid, but anyway -” she sighs - “I found bits and pieces consistently over the years -” she lays photos and maps out across the desk as she speaks. “But recently it's gotten weird – do the words _Ever Upward Reach_ mean anything to you?”

“Ever Upward Reach? You mean The Governors? They like, _own_ my school.”

“You go to _Coal Hill?”_

“Ding.”

“God, I'm almost jealous! I don't know why I need to tell you anything –the things you could tell me, I bet? No don't, I don't think there's time. You see, all over the places where there have been angels there's been scribblings and rumours about these people and something called _The Arrival;_ now it's my theory, and again Larry says it's crack but – but it's my theory that Ever Upward Reach are working on behalf of the angels with this _arrival_ in mind.”

“Yeah but _what_ is it? Like an alien invasion?”

“I mean that would be my guess, yes? I _know_ it sounds stupid but -”

“No really. It really doesn't.”

“But I really hope not, because how can the whole planet fight that many angels? And it's starting, isn't it? That's why you're here? The rise in weird activity amongst statues in London has gone wild over the last few months and now -”

“What kind of activity?”

-x-

“So actually, yeah, she rang me!” The Doctor is saying, keeping up the chatter as they walk through into the too large space beyond - “My friend Amy – you know when you think I mean you're pretty much sure you're never going to hear from someone again and it kinda breaks your heart a bit but on the other hand you know that if you _do_ hear from them it means reality's breaking down and the world's probably about to end? You know that feeling right?”

“Oh sure, we all know that feeling,” Quill rolls her eyes.

“That is what we call a Big Mood,” Matteusz nods.

“It's – very specific?” Charlie adds, concerned that the Doctor does not speak sarcasm.

“Ah right yeah. So. My good friends the Ponds – they got sent back by angels a while back, both of them, together it turned out and now their timeline, it's sort of – well – wobbling, you know, in a sort of wibbly wobbly -”

“No please.” Matteusz interrupts gently - “You said this on the video – or the other you said this – and it did not make sense then either. Do not say that thing.”

“Yeah, I concur. Unhelpful, carry on without the timey – wimey,” Quill nods.

“Oh. Alright. So after the shrieking and the nearly crying and the _So good to see you!_ And a little bit of _you're not the Doctor! Oh yes I am! No! Yes_ and all that pantomime business, she tells me that something's going very wrong and that she thinks the angels' grip of time is – not going wrong, but _changing?_ Now I usually say change is good, go change, but I think maybe not so much this time because change means more angels and the Earth doesn't need that and we're all going to die and yada yada yada and I _rarely_ say that too, but bear with me I'm still working myself out. Oh a noise! Who beeped?”

“Me,” Matteusz takes his phone out. “It's Tanya, she says, _yes more angels_ and something about _The Arrival?”_

“Oh,” the Doctor actually stops dead for a moment - “Yeah that's not good. That is not good at all. Also, have you noticed that there's nobody else here?”

“Also that this place should not fit inside the school?” Matteusz murmurs.

“Time Lord technology,” the other three say in unison and stop to look between each other.

“I mean in short,” the Doctor goes on as though nobody ever interrupted her - “Amy thinks end of the world. But she also said that when she went back, she really _did_ go to the exact same time and place as Rory, and that's not something I ever heard of happening before even though I figured they must have managed it because of the gravestone, but she said she felt it was because she wanted to hard enough and because she was so sure it _would_ happen and she wondered basically if – if there were a strong enough group of people wanting it as much as she wanted it then that kind of choice, that strong a wish might be the key to defeating the angels and I didn't know if there was owt in that or not, but then an uncanny minute or so later _you_ call me -” gesturing to Quill - “And I thought _huh._ I did, a very definite _huh,_ and I thought _there's_ a great group of kids and aliens as could defeat an angel invasion if ever I saw one so – thing to think on, right?”

“Question.” Quill holds her hand up.

“Love questions!”

“Do you _ever_ stop to breathe?”

“Ehh, breathing -” the Doctor flaps a hand airily. “Who needs it. Oh. Ah. Now this is bad. This is really _really_ bad.”

“What is?”

They reach an alcove in the back wall up a flight of stairs, pulling back a curtain to reveal a mosaic mishmash of a Weeping Angel, all the sections of which appear to be taken from different places and time zones all over the world. A complete picture, every piece in place.

“What is this?”

“It's a door,” the Doctor says quietly, and the others run cold with fear to hear the dread in her voice. “And it's ready. No wonder there's nobody here. They don't want to be angel food when the second wave comes.”

“Wait what second wave?” Quill scowls.

“What about the first wave?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah that's a thing,” The Doctor nods - “See the first wave's already here. You _dinged_ again, tell me it's a useful _ding?”_

“Tanya says _The Angels will take the churches,”_ Matteusz frowns. “Does this make any sense?”

“Too much,” the Doctor says - “Too much sense. She's clever that one – she find this out on her own?”

“She's been talking to someone,” Charlie offers - “Someone called Sally Sparrow?”

“Aww brilliant!” The Doctor beams - “Good old Sally Sparrow! But in other news -” the grin drops in a flash to be replaced by a frown, honestly, Charlie thinks, navigating the rise and fall of the Doctor's moods is like being at sea in a storm. He is a little disturbed to relaise that the new regeneration has not actually lessened the respect – crush he absolutely did not have in the first place.

“In other news, this is bad – I mean it's good, because we know where the first wave will hit but it's bad because today is Sunday – _Easter_ Sunday and – ah – none of you have churchgoers in the family do you?”

“ _Now,”_ Matteusz swallows hard, his voice comes out in a whisper - “They'll be there _now.”_ He starts texting rapidly, walking away quickly at the same time, Charlie follows -

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Tanya. Her mother – their church service is same time as ours. It may already be too late -”

“In that case you can't just -”

“He's right -” The Doctor comes running after them, Quill not far behind.

“If we're right and the Angels are at the churches maybe all over the country right now you can't just walk into a nest of them -”

“It's my _parents.”_ Matteusz dead- eyes her and she actually goes silent. Charlie does not -

“Is it worth it? Really? Risking yourself for them after everything they've- I - I mean, you're _nothing_ like them and -”

“No,” Matteusz stops him - “I am not. That is why I go to help.”

“Then I'm coming with you. Don't argue with me, please.”

Matteusz takes his hand and squeezes it hard, Charlie's answering squeeze just as hard. They look up to see the Doctor smiling at them adoringly, her eyes thundering with sadness.

“Go. Get back to Quill as soon as you can and whatever you do _do not blink!”_

-x-

All across England the churches are packed. It is the one day of the year in fact when the churches _are_ packed. The air is thick with the smell of flowers and incense- and chocolate in the better churches. As services draw to a close on this particularly special day, deacons all around the country wheel out the new and vital holy relics for the viewing pleasure of the congregation and as they stand before the packed out pews, closing their eyes is the last thing anybody wants to do and they stare at the carvings in a wonder they would never have felt if they had not been told to feel it- and yet at the same time there is this sense, a very real sense in all who see them, that these angels are not of this world and they should feel blessed. They never see the second angel come in through the door behind them, or the third, fourth and fifth angel appear behind the choir; they never see the rows of angels that appear silently beside the confessional and beside the pulpit, never see until they do and in their surprise – they blink.

When Tanya reaches the church all she can do is run. She runs and runs backwards as fast and as far as she can from the solid circle of angels that hand in hand surround what used to be her church.

-x-

Services at St Jude's run longer and when Charlie and Matteusz burst into the church the first angel is only just being brought out. Charlie keeps his eyes fixed on it while Matteusz closes his to draw breath, unable to quite believe he is daring to do this -

“You all need to leave!” he shouts and even this nervous shout echoes loudly across the church - “Everyone! You're in terrible danger! You have to leave!”

All over the church people turn to look at them, confused and whispering, echoes of _what?_ and _who?_ and _why? i_ n all their forms attacking them. A man in the second row rises and stares at them balefully just as Charlie yells -

“Don't look away from the angel! Whatever you do don't blink!”

“ _You -”_ he hisses venomously, mostly at Matteusz though it takes in Charlie too, judging and instantly discarding him as the man turns his back on the second angel, the one that no-one has yet seen and before Matteusz has time to call out to his father the man vanishes and so too, like lights going off all over town one by one the rest of the congregation. Charlie grabs Matteusz by the hand and pulls -

“Run!”

They run.

-x-

“Tanya - where are you?”

It is hard to run and talk on the phone at the same time but Matteusz manages it while Charlie keeps watch behind them.

“Running! You?”

“Running! Angels! At the church! You!”

“Too late, were you too late?”

“Too late. Where are you going?”

“I dunno!”

“We are – going back to the school – Quill and the Doctor -”

“The Doctor is there?”

“Yes.”

“I'll meet you at the school!”

“Ram and April?”

“April's -” Tanya wheezes through the stitch in her side - “Dad's funeral – Ram too -”

“Shit. Funeral is – where?”

“Dunno. But she said – she missed – church service.”

“Good. We get get back to Quill, we call her then -”

“Okay!”

-x-

Ram remembers when April told him about her father playing the fiddle, how it used to make her cry. He never laughed at her for it, but he remembers that back then he could not imagine someone crying over folk music. When April stood up amongst her father's friends as toasts were given after the meal he felt a lump come to his throat as soon as she started to speak.

“We didn't – get on,” she says awkwardly - “That's – a way to put it. But I – this was the first piece he ever played for me. He said that when I was a baby it used to put me to sleep and then – when I got older it used to make me cry. I'm not good at speeches but this is – this is for dad.”

Ram can see, when she picks up the fiddle and takes up the bow, how much easier it is to play in this instance than speak; maybe, he thinks it's always like that. He thinks about how hard it is to talk about his feelings sometimes, how rather than voice them he will throw himself into re-learning a football move he cannot do any more, kicking the ball over and over until it goes the right way. He wonders if that isn't a bit what it's like for April; if the bow is her ball. When she plays he cries and cries, so, he notices through the tears, do more than half the people there. Sitting near him April's mother looks over at him and he can see she's crying too. She reaches out and squeezes his hand. Under any other circumstances he thinks this would have been awkward as hell but now he squeezes back.

  
  


He tries to read April's face while she plays, tries to work out, while she cannot see him looking, if he can understand what she is feeling, but the only expression she displays is one of intense concentration, as though nothing else could matter except getting this right. Maybe it doesn't, maybe that's the point; that this is the only eulogy to her father she can make. He worries sometimes that he will never understand her at all, he loves her yes, he has never been in any doubt of that, even when they have argued, even when things have been at their very worst he has never doubted that he loves her but to understand her? It feels like it will take a lifetime, a lifetime he is only to willing to give. It is strange, this giving and taking that occurs in a relationship; sometimes he thinks all April does is give but at other times she seems so guarded, so utterly entrenched in her own armour that she is incapable of giving anything and he, though throwing every feeling he ever has at her cannot give to the world what she does while giving so little clue as to herself. April is a gift he thinks, she is also a mystery and then sometimes – she is just April and that is better than anything. He wonders if it really is so very hard to get or if he's just stupid. He listens to her play and cannot imagine he is, in comparison, anything other than stupid. And then maybe this, this is how she speaks best, in the music, with her face still giving nothing away the way she likes it not to. Maybe next time he tries to ask her how she feels he should ask her to play for him instead because if he closes his eyes now here she is, crying out her loss and confusion and her messy feelings and wonderment if she has lost anything now at all or if she did not lose it a long time ago. This is why he is crying to hear her play, he thinks, because this playing is the sound of April crying and _oh_ he thinks, reading the look on her mother's face so much easier than he can read April – _you knew this the whole time, I've been so slow._

When she stops the room is silent for at least a full minute before the applause erupts and the yelling and April turns to _him_ and he feels blessed and though she is smiling he expects to see her wipe away a single beautiful tear. Anyone else would do it, but she just nods, lays down her fiddle and comes to him and he hugs her so she can hide her face.

“That was beautiful.” He pats her back as she hides her face in his chest.

“And now everyone's looking at me again.”

“For someone who doesn't like that you get it a lot.”

“Yeah.” She looks up and smiles at her mum who offers the same compliments and for a while she is surrounded by them and everyone else coming nervously up to offer their admiration and respects. Finally when they are alone her mum gently asks Ram if she can steal April away for a bit and he feels as generous as he sees April to be when he says yes.

After that he sits awkwardly, surrounded by people he does not know, wondering if it would be rude to be texting and see what the others are up to and wondering what April and her mum are talking about.

-x-

  
  


Charlie and Matteusz see Quill coming out of the school's front doors as they come running up.

“Oh good, you're not dead.”

It is honestly impossible, Charlie thinks, to judge from Quill's voice if this is sarcasm or not, every time he thinks he is getting the hang of this sarcasm thing she raises the bar.

“Hello to you too. What's happening?”

“The Doctor wants us all to get out of town, she says, quick as possible, I've called Ballon.”

“Tanya's coming too. What's the Doctor doing?”

The Doctor appears to be running all over the building, waving her sonic like a mad thing at every door and window she can find before jogging over to join them -

“That's every inner door between here and the portal sonic – locked and the portal's as locked as a portal can be, it won't stop stage two forever but long enough for you all to get out. Is there anywhere you can all go that's out of town, say middle of nowhere where statues don't tend to be? Oh! How're your parents? Dead or back in time? Uff, there's a better way of asking that, still working on my people skills.”

“They all just – vanished -” Matteusz stares at her in blank horror and hope.

“Good!” The Doctor beams brightly - “Vanished is good, vanished is back in time, dead is lying around with snapped necks- sorry – sorry – try again – look, they're old fashioned, your folks right? They'll probably _enjoy_ a different time period.”

“That is true.” Matteusz nods and shrugs, surprised to find he is genuinely comforted by this -

“They will be right at home among the homophobia and racism of an earlier age.”

“Yeah well,” Tanya runs up to them, panting, catching the tail end of this - “My mum – not so much? Who's this?”

“Tanya!” the Doctor beams and envelops her in a surprisingly large hug for someone so small - “My fam! Extended fam – you don't still have that third wish, do you?”

“Oh my shit.” Tanya's eyes open wide - “Doctor? I mean yes – well, Quill has it – do you think it can stop this -”

“Nah. Just checking. Okay though, calm down. I think _I_ can stop this- just give me time? Which luckily – time traveller, I can do – Who here can drive?”

“I'm – fifteen?”

“ _I_ can drive. Where are we supposed to go?”

“Okay, first -” the Doctor looks between them frowning, as though complex life saving plans are one thing but basic addition is too much - “There's two of you missing?”

“Ram and April – I will call them,” Matteusz gets on the phone.

“I need the whole lot of you to stay together. Go out of town like I said, somewhere statues just aren't a thing? The second wave can't get past the locks I've put in and I'm gonna do a bunch of other – stuff – to hold them off as long as possible -”

“Stuff?”

“If I say _wibbly wobbly lock wocky stuff_ how likely are you to punch me?”

“Almost one hundred percent,” Quill groans.

“Then I won't. Oh hello, who are you? Oooh I've never met a Lore before and you're – well aren't you interesting?” The Doctor's eyes widen like she has just seen an exciting butterfly.

“Don't – um – mum, who's the strange woman and why is she dancing around me?”

“Yeah stop that Doctor, that's my boy – well sometimes boy, sometimes capybara -”

“Oh my _gosh!”_ The Doctor finds herself having to hold back from an actual _oh boy oh boy!_ and everyone can hear it - “Last time I saw you were – actually no kid needs to hear that! Trust me when I say haven't you grown, because really you have. You really _really_ have – Okay so who here has, oh I dunno, like an out of the way cabin in the woods or something?”

“Um – April?” Matteusz shoves his phone in his pocket, staring at the Doctor like something just fell into place so spectacularly as to be unbelievable.

“What? Charlie frowns.

“Yeah what?” Tanya echoes - “Since when?”

“It is – very strange -” Matteusz eyes the Doctor suspiciously, who smiles suddenly so innocently that _everyone_ is suddenly suspicious. “She is with her mother, who is just telling her that her father left her his get-away cabin in the woods – very out of the way in the lower Scottish hills. It is funny because I am just telling her how we need to get out of town somewhere, middle of nowhere, and she says _oh my gosh I have just the thing_ because her mother has just told her this this minute – and well she and Ram are coming here right now, and Doctor – Doctor are you listening?”

“What happened _there?”_ The Doctor is peering at the remains of the Blank's spaceship crash behind them.

“Ughf nothing,” Quill shrugs. “Weeks ago. Fake alien spaceship crashed into the Barbara Wright building, invasion of personality sucking alien – blanks, blah blah blah - ”

“Rude of them,” the Doctor mutters, mostly, they assume to herself - “Have to fix that for her. Anyway! Yeeeaah – gotta go, need to go see a man about a cabin in the woods, oh about – ten years ago? Then get back and hold off the Angel invasion. So much to do, so little time, and all that – I know you guys have got this – I have faith -”

“Got _what?”_ Tanya bursts in impatient - “You haven't actually told us _anything_ about what we can do, or how we can get our people back – I lost my mum once, I'm not going to do that again. And how is running away and hiding going to help?”

“Ah good questions. Fair point. These guys will fill you in on the whole if-you-all-stick-together business, won't you?” She does not stop long enough for any of them to agree with her. “But true, I _don't_ know when that time will be, and for now I need you just to sit tight and wait for this first stage to pass while I do what I can to hold off the second stage. I _promise_ we'll get your parents back, Tanya – yours too if you want them.”

“But why _us?”_ Tanya almost stamps her foot - “Just like last time, Doctor? What are _we_ supposed to do. We're not – we're nobody special.”

“Speak for yourself,” Quill grumbles.

“Nobody special?” The Doctor stares at her like this hurts her - “What are you talking about? Those two are the last of their species! Resourceful and strong and brave as heck – Your friend April – her heart's so big she can live on half of it and Ram lost his leg and still went on the kick the Shadow King's butt without it -”

“Yeah but we're just -” Tanya makes a helpless gesture between her and Matteusz - “No offence -” she shrugs at him.

“She has a point,” he shrugs in agreement.

“Aww come on now, you two? You're the most important of the lot! You think you don't need some regular humans to remind you all how brilliant you are? Tanya I've seen you climb a giant and never look back, you braved a haunted house just to save a girl you didn't even know, you find the right answer time and time again _and_ you ask all the right questions and _you_ -” she turns to Matteusz almost accusingly - “Do you think they'd survive five minutes without someone to remind them who they are? How good they can be? The whole group would be blind without you so don't you either of you _dare_ down yourselves for _just_ being human, there's no _just_ in humanity, believe me it doesn't get more important than the two of you.”

“That is – nice – but I do not see how it helps,” Matteusz mumbles.

“Humanity. It's all you need. I've seen a lot of groups before, they come and go they fall apart, I don't see a lot of what you are – any of you know the word _ka – tet?”_

“Actually yes. I have read that book.”

“Of course you have,” she beams “I knew you guys were special first time I saw you all, some groups just _glow –_ glow like the heart of a TARDIS. I have a good feeling about this. Keep each other safe okay? Be back to you when I can.”

She runs away backwards, waving. The two humans, the Quill, the Rhodian and the Lore stare at each other for a long moment in uncertainty and unanswered questions.

“So – what do we do?” Tanya asks for what feels like the hundredth time.

“Quill?” Charlie turns to her, eyes full of questions - “Now would probably be a really good time to remind us that _no-one but the Doctor can think for themselves –_ and all that.”

“What choice do we have?” Matteusz asks.

Suddenly Quill finds that they are all looking at her and she fixes on Ballon's blue – gold stare and never felt more responsible, not when an entire army rested on her decision.

“We do as the Doctor ordered,” she says. “Go home, call the others, get what you can carry, food, clothes, whatever, meet back here in half an hour, Ballon, go with Tanya, watch each other's backs, do not – and if I have to say this again I'm going to get bored and none of you will like me when I'm bored – _do not blink.”_

“What about you?”

She almost snorts laughter to think that it is Charlie, out of all of them, who cares enough to ask this first.

“I'm going to steal us a get away vehicle! Now go!”

__x__

 

 

**Sorry about the delay getting this one out, ended up working monday night which is not normally a thing, anyway. Next week on** _Class:_ **Five college students head to an old abandoned cabin in the woods! I mean what could possibly go wrong? Which one of them will handle the forbidden object and read the weird inscription? Charlie and Matteusz shirtless chopping wood! Oh and somebody dies.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Ok quick note at the start of this one - there may come a point in this chapter where you'll just want to curse me forever and quit reading - but please do not - I promise I do fix the thing i did that is A Bad Thing :-)**   
  


_**Chapter 8: Cabin In The Woods** _

  
  


“Where's April and Ram?”

“We're here!” Ram pants, as the two of them come running up.

“What took you so long?”

“Had to – sort out that our folks were safe didn't we?”

“What did you arrange?”

“My mum's gone with his parents -” April pants, hands on her knees from running so fast - “What about your brothers?”

“They've gone to the New Forest with a group of _their_ friends,” Tanya nods - “I did say they could come with us but obviously hiding from aliens with friends is _way_ cooler than doing it with family – and er – yeah actually that's true isn't it? Did you bring food?”

“Mum said that dad always kept the cellar pretty stocked but yeah, it's in the bags.”

“Us too,” Matteusz nods, tolerantly unclipping the ridiculous extra rucksack buckle Charlie has done up across his chest - “In case all you have in that cellar is beans.”

“I like beans.”

“Thanks for that mate.” Ram claps Charlie on the back with vague sarcasm but enough force, given the size of the bag, to almost topple him over.

“Kay though -” Ram adds - “Doesn't anyone think it's a little too handy, not to say weird, that April gets told about this cabin in the woods just before, ooh look suddenly we really need a cabin in the woods?”

“Ram Singh,” Quill drawls. “Late to the party as usual,” as she sticks her head out of the front window drawing up alongside them in the -

“The school minivan?” Charlie blinks at her rapidly - “Really?”

“You're doubting it? Seemed perfect if you ask me. Come on, hop in the lot of you, see it as a _Coal Hill_ special class trip. No litter, no swearing, _no_ singing. Come _on,_ kids, there's an alien invasion going on- make it snappy!”

-x-

“Fuck my life, is it wrong that this shit is almost fun?” Ram chucks his litter at Matteusz's head half an hour later in a brief break from singing.

“Yeah -” Quill calls from the front - “You say fun, I say I'm tempted to take my chances with the angels. Did you just break all my rules in two seconds?”

“School is out,” Matteusz shrugs - “Rules are off.”

“ _Schooooool's out!”_ Ram bellow – sings.

“Oh please no,” Quill moans. For once April agrees with her.

“This is an offence to music Ram, please stop.”

“- _For summer!”_

“Okay who's gonna help me gag Ram?”

Tanya leaps to her aid.

-x-

“Okay but,” Ram says half an hour later, as they swing off the motorway and away from the increasingly heavy traffic, taking their chances instead with a country lane up through the midlands - “Doesn't anyone else think this feels like the start of one of them movies where the college kids all die in the end and there's like zombies or whatever?”

“Like the _Evil Dead_ musical?” Tanya starts singing the opening song but nobody else knows it so nobody joins in. She stops.

“Okay Tanya you're too young to have seen _Evil Dead_ though?”

“Not for the musical though? Anyway shut up I've been playing _Resident Evil_ since I was eight.”

“Which I am sure will help us when our cabin is surrounded by the walking dead.” Matteusz nods.

“I've seen that show too, so there.”

“Wait is this a – thing?” Charlie frowns - “Are we heading from one peril into another?”

“You really do have _kick me_ written all over your face, don't you?” Quill groans. Matteusz laughs and shakes his head softly at Charlie when he tries to look at himself surreptitiously in the minivan window to see if this is true.

“Zombies aren't real, doofus,” Tanya rolls her eyes at him.

“Actually -” Quill starts but then stops - “No you know what, you're under pressure. I'll let you believe that.”

“Can _I_ play _Resident Evil,_ mum?”

“Don't be ridiculous you're not a year old yet. Ask me again when you're two.”

“Aww _mum -”_

_-x-_

Four hours later, and the roads, Quill notices, are getting quieter. She thinks about what this might mean; traffic out of London was extreme and all the people they spoke to at the service stations had said the same thing – that they felt the big cites were not safe any more. That said there did not seem to be the _hugest_ air of panic, like one might expect from an alien invasion, but then, there had been, the others told her, an invasion about four years ago that nobody had noticed for over a year, all of them just keeping those funny black boxes as paperweights and curiosities. _Humans,_ she thinks, _how they're still standing must be one of the universes best kept secrets._ She strongly suspects it has something to do with the Doctor. And now here she is, helping them herself; she cannot even say why any more, just smiles down quizzically at Ballon snoring softly in the seat beside her and risking a glance into the mirror at the rest of them, Ram asleep on April's shoulder, Charlie against Matteusz and Tanya – she squints – reading something that yes, actually looks like homework. April catches her eye for a second and smiles and Quill looks away, feigning a complete lack of fondness for any of them.

 _Knew it_ April thinks – _She does care._ She smiles to know it, strange to realise how much better it makes her feel to have Quill around. She is not quite sure how some of the others can sleep, with everything that has happened – but then of course with everything that has happened, of course people are tired. Her eyes slide sideways to Ram who is actually drooling on her shoulder a little but she would not dream of waking him. Sh wonders if it is wrong of her to feel mostly lucky just now; her father just dead and her mother gone off with Ram's parents to wait out the threat – actually she is quite happy about that – if a little nervous – the parents meeting, actually spending time together, however is that going to go? She wonders why this feels like more of a concern to her than the whole Weeping Angel problem. She also cannot deny that she is excited to explore this cabin and the woods around it – Ram is right, and so is Quill – it _does_ feel like a trip, one that could even be fun if she could only stop worrying. She looks up for a moment to see Matteusz looking at her curiously as though he would like to ask her what is bothering her, but he also does not want to speak and wake the rest of them up.

It is comforting in a way, Matteusz thinks, to see from April's face that she is worried too and full of questions, and in the second they make eye contact he can see that she too is not voicing them yet, out of respect for the current stillness and the others who are sleeping. He nearly fell asleep himself before he felt the weight of Charlie's head on his shoulder and then realised that he had fallen asleep despite his last words having been “I'm just going to rest on you a bit, I won't sleep I promise”- and now of course he cannot sleep due to that probably foolish but instinctive urge to be at least awake enough to watch over him kicking in. If he had the last wish on that box he would wish for nothing bad to happen to Charlie ever again, he has thought about this a lot and he supposes it is probably a waste of a wish but it would be his all the same. He sort of suspects, seeing the way April looks sideways at Ram, that she is thinking and feeling a lot of the same things as he is right now, and it is good. He thinks about everything that has happened, the tearing events of the past – has it only been a day? - strange to think – and what will happen next. But don't they always live in doubt of that? This year – the last of school – he supposes they would still be thinking of nothing but this even without the alien threat. Somehow, comparing all of this to the dread of _what happens after school?_ makes it all seem a lot less terrifying. He glances at Tanya, dropping off over her homework and smiles wryly, wondering if their exams will even still take place with everyone leaving London.

Tanya sees Matteusz raise an eyebrow at her and shrugs one shoulder in response to say _what? Homework still needs done I guess?_ And then she wonders about that because _does it?_ What if exams don't happen? What if this new threat – which seems so much larger than anything they have dealt with yet – what if this puts them back, say a whole year? She cannot believe she's thinking about this rather than daring to think _what if we all don't make it?_ But then it's pointless to think _that,_ isn't it? Far more helpful to wonder what happens if they do. For now she at least knows that they are heading somewhere safer and knows that her brothers too are at least as safe as they are. She cannot worry about her mum this time - _I've lost her once before, I can't lose her again_ has turned into _I've lost her once before, I can get her back this time too –_ besides, at least this time she knows she isn't dead. Crazy, the things they learn to live with, but she supposes that's true of everyone. It occurs to her with a jolt of surprise that today is her bithday and she supposes she is now fifteen; she wonders how many of the others have had birthdays they haven't even mentioned because it was a day aliens were attacking. _You will get older,_ her mum said, and she had hardly believed it, she guesses she should trust her sometimes after all.

-x-

They drive through the night and as it starts to get light again they reach the forest. _Wow,_ Charlie is thinking. _I never saw so many trees in one place before –_ he wonders if it would make him a dork to say this out loud but before he can try it Quill starts cursing about the lack of GPS.

“Yes but,” Matteusz says quietly. “If the GPS fails in the woods is there anyone around to know?”

“ _I'm_ here,” Quill – who unlike the rest of them has not yet slept – snaps. “Believe me, if I don't get a hint we're on the right track soon everyone's going to bloody know. I don't suppose anyone has anything useful like a map?”

“Ooh!” April blinks herself awake at the sound of grumbling Quill - “ _I_ have a map.”

“You probably have a bloody compass and a box of band – aids too.”

“Well actually -”

“Shut up and map read then!”

“Okay so -”

Twenty minutes and a lot of shouting later they pull up at picture perfect cabin not far from a small lake in the woods.

“On the plus side -” Tanya grins, jumping gratefully out of the mini van - “If we have trouble finding it that should means any aliens do too right?”

“Or zombies.” Ram follows stretching his leg and promptly yelling, because how can a fake leg seize up anyway? “Jesus April did your dad go 'oh I know, what looks exactly like that place from _Evil Dead?'”_

“Mum said he did get the idea while drunk after a gig one time.”

“Let me guess he got into a conversation with a woman he never saw again or afterwards who put the idea in his head and actually had just the place in mind, gave him all the details and then said _oh and by the way leave this to your daughter in your will?”_

April looks at Quill blankly and Quill shrugs and sighs -

“Oh never mind, I'll explain one day. I don't know about you all, but I'm knackered.”

“Yes,” Matteusz nods - “Let us go offload food, fight over bedrooms and then -” he raises an eyebrow at Charlie which everybody can see belies his next word - “ -sleep.”

Groaning and jostling each other they head into the cabin and pool their fresh food supplies out on the huge wooden table top.

“Who brought flour and – the crap is this – fake egg?”

“I thought – I could bake bread? Because you know bread goes off, but dry supplies?”

“You bake?”

“I – try.”

 _It's the worst_ Ram mouths over April's head.

“Hey!” he picks up a packet - “Who brought like ten packs of polish sausage?”

“Is mostly for Charlie -” Matteusz shrugs unapologetically - “He likes the Polish sausage.”

“Hurr hurr, I'll bet.”

“Ugh Ram I'm still under age!”

“Yeah I can see that Tanya, what's this, twenty bags of haribo?”

“Oh like you won't eat them? Who's gonna eat eight jars of pickles?”

“Those are mine,” Matteusz shrugs more apologtically - “I like pickles.”

“Gross. You kiss this person?”

“Um – yes?”

“It was rhetorical Charlie, you don't have to answer him. Ram, stop being a dick, what did you bring?”

When the laughing and shouting about food supplies is finally over they fight over rooms, kicking Quill out of the one in which she has already fallen asleep. The two couples take the main rooms though April is temporarily delighted by the hammock in the basement.

“What? I could put it up under the trees and sleep under the stars?”

“What with the killer trees and zombies?”

“Yeah” Tanya grabs the hammock off her - “And I am _not_ gonna be the one sleeping in with Ram” She clutches the hammock to her chest protectively - “Ballon, what are _you_ gonna do?”

Ballon flashes her a very white smile -

“I found good roosting just outside, I'll be a bat and go hang.”

“I am never gonna get used to answers like that. If it wasn't weird, you'd almost make it sound cool. Quill, are you alright on a sofa?”

“Because I can see I have _so_ much choice in this matter,” Quill grumbles, secretly having already decided to sleep near the door and that way be some kind of warning system anyway. “Better than being too close and hearing the lot of you banging all night, it's bad enough at home.”

“Really?” Ram raises an eyebrow at Matteusz - “You can go all night?”

“I am like Duracell Bunny.”

“Yes Ram, not everybody just rolls over and falls asleep after.”

“Hey, I do not -”

 _He does._ April nods and mouths over Ram's head.

“I am _so_ too young for any of this,” Tanya groans, heading to the cellar with her hammock.

“Yeah and I'm too old,” Quill grumbles - “You're all gonna give me a hernia. Go – sing kum ba ya or something round a camp fire.”

“Ooh!” Ram bounces on the spot - “Camp fire, April, Camp fire!”

“I take back the _I'm_ too young,” Tanya calls up.

“Yes Ram, we can have a camp fire – tonight.” April sighs - “Actually I think I saw some of Dad's old instruments somewhere -”

“Can we _please_ just fight Angels and die?” Quill moans as April rummages out a violin, guitar and harmonica.

-x-

This is _nice,_ Charlie thinks, later that evening, as the fire crackles up into the dark sky and the rest of the forest crackles beyond – so nice you would think it was a choice, not an escape from alien invasion, but then maybe that is why these things happen; so that the nice things that you would not do otherwise can happen. He shies away from the thought before he can contemplate it too much – wondering whether or not things were meant to happen has crept up on him more and more lately and almost always leaves him feeling guilty and a traitor to his people and even then _his_ people does not sound right any more unless he is thinking about the seven of them here. April and Ram are snuggling over in the smokiest part of the campfire, because nobody else will sit there and April insisted there wasn't _that_ much smoke to the point where she just had to sit in it to prove her point since she made up the fire, and Ram is with her as penance for setting fire to the foliage when he tried to help. Ballon is helping Tanya to surreptitiously hide the burnt parts of her dinner in a bush because April insisted on taking first cooking duty and burnt the sausages and beans and Charlie would rather not think too deeply about the smash to begin with, but ate his anyway because he wanted to be polite and it has not escaped his notice that so did Quill. Matteusz is gently strumming a guitar nobody knew he could play and even Quill is sat in their sort – of circle watching them quietly, contemplating, and he suspects gently guarding them. Strange how he never really felt safer for Quill's presence when she was forced to protect him but now somehow he does. After the burst of loud nonsense songs and Ram making an ungodly noise on the harmonica which he cannot play it is a nice, quiet moment and Charlie finds himself wishing it was acceptable to tell them all how much he loves them.

“Are you gonna like – sing something mate, or do you like only know those two chords?”

“You – want me to sing something?”

“Sure, April did earlier, we promise not to laugh.”

Ram stretches lazily and yawns and Matteusz figures he actually means it and the feeling of the group is one of a general shrug so he shrugs and sings. He has a nice voice, April thinks, nothing that will ever win _The Voice_ or anything but nice and deep and calming, perfect for the camp fire and the current mood. He sings a song she remembers in a way she does not, the one from that really old muppets movie that Gonzo sings about going home and she is not surprised, when she looks across at Charlie to see how bright his eyes look in the firelight, embers glancing off a tear he does not try to hide. He looks at Matteusz in a way that melts her heart and she loves her friends so much in this moment that it feels tight in her chest. She wishes someone would look at her like that or at least – she glances at Ram affectionately – at least let her catch him looking like that sometimes.

Everyone smiles and gives soft applause at the end and when Charlie shifts up closer Matteusz holds him gently, head tilted in against head, both hoping the other can read their mind and see how beautiful they look in the orange light rather than have to say it out loud.

“Pretty,” Charlie says and he sounds like a child but nobody does more than smile.

“So where'd you learn guitar? And how come you kept that hidden?”

“Greenbelt. Shut up. And it was not exactly relevant before.”

“You went to -”

“I said shut up. It was not by choice.”

“I went to Brownies,” April shrugs.

“You would.”

“And I _liked_ it!”

Not long afterwards they go inside.

-x-

The next day it rains and they are confined to the cabin. Ram makes what he considers the amazing find of a large stash of beer and untold spirits in a corner of the cellar and gets in a row with April about whether or not he can drink them. In the end they compromise and the beers are brought up but not the spirits. That evening he and Matteusz start in on them while the girls groan at them and Charlie and Quill try Earth beer for the first time. Quill nods in half approval and joins what April dubs the _Beer corner._ Charlie takes one sip and feels ill, declares it poison and makes the rest of them hot chocolate.

“What's this?” Ram frowns, wandering the cabin and looking at all the random stuff, pausing next to the fireplace they have not yet worked out how to get started and prodding about on the mantel piece.

“Ram, first rule of horror movies – never investigate unknown things in cabins too closely -” April sighs.

“This is like – pretty weird though,” Ram frowns, picking up a box about the size of his palm.

“Ram, do not open the weird box.”

“Yeah and if there's any writing on it that you don't understand do _not_ say it out loud?”

“It _does_ have some writing on it.” Ram peers at the side of the box closely.”

“Ram do _not -”_

“What it just says – I dunno _dim hon?_ Not exactly creepy Latin is it?”

“Oh well you've done it now.” Tanya rolls her eyes.

“Tanya chill your tits there's nothing _in_ it -” Ram opens the box and waves it around.

“Okay I am _sure_ I did see something fall out of that.”

“Yeah but you've had like how many beers mate?”

“This does not mean I do not see things and something definitely came out when you shook the box.”

“Yeah! Dust – from sitting on a shelf in a creepy old cabin for ten years – we scared of dust now?”

“Shadows – bad – petals – bad -” Matteusz checks them off on his fingers - “I do not want to die by dust.”

“Ram sit down and – I cannot believe I'm saying this – drink your beer? There's a good boy.”

“You call him a _good boy_? Because sometimes -”

“Charlie shush, there are things you do not need to share with our friends.”

“Ah. I'm shushed. Hot chocolate and bed?”

“Okay _what_ is Ballon doing?”

Balon has turned into a cat and is pouncing and jumping at something.

“Spider,” he says, shaking his head as he changes back - “Nearly got it. Missed. _God,_ Tanya.”

-x-

“I think we have rats,” Quill announces three days later.

“Eww!” April squeaks.

“Seriously?” Tanya raises an eyebrow at her from the sofa. “You were literally King of the Shadowkin and you say _eww_ to a few rats?”

“I like rats.”

“You like everything.”

“Is true. In Poland every other person is really a rat. You have to get used to it or get lonely.”

Matteusz winks at Charlie to let him know this is not actually true.

“I haven't _seen_ any rats,” Ballon frowns.

“And so obviously that means there aren't any.” Quill rolls her eyes prodding the door to the cellar with her toe.

“There _aren't_ though!” Tanya shrugs - “Not in the cellar anyway, I sleep down there most nights.”

“When she's not stringing her hammock up under the stars,” Ram grins.

“ _After_ mocking me for saying I was going to do that,” April adds.

“Shut up. You all better hope there's rats because otherwise what _is_ all the scratching and clattering I've been hearing at night?”

“I'd tell you Quill but you do not want to know.”

“Oh please. I know _exactly_ the noises all of you make during sex, especially you, you are _not_ quiet – and none of you make _that_ kind of scratching sound.”

“I have done scratching.”

“Didn't need to know!”

“Yes, shut up Matteusz, there's a minor in the cabin.”

“What? He is allowed to do screaming and I cannot even say things?”

“Yeah and about that mate – can't you like – gag him or something?”

“Still a minor!” Tanya groans.

“I tried this. It did not work. Anyway -”

“Anyway there are things about Ram's sex life he would rather none of us know, but dear god after last night we all do now?” Quill snaps and April goes red.

“And this is why I sleep in the cellar. You know what I may have been a minor when this conversation began but -”

“You are a hundred years old now?”

“Alright, shut up all of you! Just shut up – somebody go and chop some wood or something, save Ram from looking like an idiot sprawled out there on the floor _not_ in front of a fire.”

“I'll go.”

“Oh no you don't. Last time you went you turned into a tree for three hours afterwards and I nearly actually cared.”

“ _I_ will go.” Matteusz gets up, stretching.

“I'll come too.”

“Yes, because obviously the cord connecting you two won't stretch beyond one room. Don't be five hours this time – you think we don't all know what happened behind the wood shed last time but trust me we do.”

“I like the outdoors,” Matteusz shrugs - “It was sunny.”

“It _is_ sunny,” Charlie adds - “Why are we fetching wood again?”

“Well Quill _was_ trying to break up the sex talk subtly but now you've blown it.”

“Actually Tanya it was not blown until you said that, but anyway.”

“Go!” Quill yells - “I order you out of the cabin!”

-x-

“Charlie – why are you taking your shirt off to chop wood?”

Matteusz has already given up – since two out of three times his blows land in the log without splitting it whereas Charlie gets them every time with a strength Matteusz is all too happy to sit back on a tree trunk and watch.

“I said it was hot. Besides, I thought you might appreciate it.”

“This is _not_ going to lead to wood getting cut.”

“Woodshed?”

“Behind the woodshed. Now.”

-x-

Three days later Matteusz wakes up in the middle of the night – because he checks his phone first thing and it is past three in the morning – hearing footsteps outside the bedroom door. He throws on pyjamas and tiptoes out.

“Miss Quill? What are you doing walking up and down in front of our rooms?”

“Shh! Can't you hear it? I am _not_ going mad and that is bigger than a rat!”

“What's bigger than a rat?” April comes out of her room, yawning - “Why are we awake?”

“I think a better question is how aren't the others?”

“Ram could sleep through a bomb going off.”

“And Charlie is – oh never mind – _you_ are also awake?”

“I'm sleeping inside,” Ballon comes up to them, yawning - “There's something out there.”

“See? Fucking finally! You two – _listen.”_ She holds April and Matteusz still by the shoulders and they all stop in the corridor looking up to the roof. Because Quill is right; there _is_ something making a scratching, tapping noise up there, like it's right above their heads and moving about on the roof. Skittering then stopping then scrabbling, like it's trying to get in. Something about the sound here, in the dark sends cold fingers down their spines.

“Kid, are you _sure_ that was a spider the other night?”

“When?”

“When Ram in all his wisdom opened that bloody box. You said you saw a spider, are you _sure_ it was a spider?”

“That would be one very big spider,” Matteusz whispers.

“No. No I'm not sure but it was small – much smaller than whatever's making that noise, and there was a shadow – before outside – spiders don't cast shadows like that.”

“Shit.”

“Should we wake the others?” April asks.

“No. No need. But you can bet I'm staying up tonight to make sure nothing comes in.”

“We can take it in turns?”

Quill gives Matteusz a look that is almost grateful. In the end they all sit up together until the noise goes away and Ram and Charlie wake up early, wondering where the others have got to.

-x-

“So you're saying,” Tanya asks later, when Quill has brought them all up to speed - “You reckon there was something in the box and that it's – grown? Like really really grown?”

“And I would gues sit's still growing,” Quill nods - “From a speck of dust to something like a spider to _oh let's all laugh at the Quill for thinking there are rats_ to something the size of a tiger if my reckoning from last night is correct.”

“That's – horrible,” Ram shudders.

“You _were_ the idiot who opened the box,” Tanya glares at him.

“Okay let's not all start blaming Ram at once?” April gives them all her most pleading peacemaker face - “I'm sure he feels bad enough already.”

“Yeah I think I feel worse for you saying that?”

“So Quill -” Charlie looks to her for the advice they all want to ask for - “What do we do?”

“We wait. Nobody leaves this cabin until we know what's out there and how we can fight it.”

“That's all – we just – stay here and do nothing?”

“That _is_ what we came to this cabin to do in the first place, yes.”

“But – stay inside?” Charlie's face crumples - “I don't like it.”

“Oh well, why didn't you say so before? I mean here I am trying to come up with some way of saving your asses but let's just call the whole thing off because his Majesty _doesn't like it,_ shall we?”

“I didnt -” Charlie mumbles - “Sometimes I really hate you, Quill.”

“Yeah yeah, tell me something I don't know. Meanwhile _I_ will go out and see what I can see.”

“Wait, _you're_ going out to find it yourself?”

“For now.”

“Because yes,” Matteusz frowns - “Obviously when there is a weird thing attacking a cabin in the woods the best thing to do is not take any of the others and go investigate it alone.”

“You gonna keep up with me on a hunt?” Quill snaps - “Any of you?”

“Umm -” Ballon almost raises a hand but thinks better of it - “I'm _good_ at tracking – possibly better than you, no offence mum?”

Quill looks at her child carefully for a long moment, weighing up the risk to him versus the help he could be and the opportunity to demonstrate trust in him.

“Fine,” she says eventually - “We will go see what's out here. The rest of you stay put. We won't be long and if we are we're dead.”

“Umm – not exactly comforting?”

“Keep them calm Tanya,” Quill sighs. “You too.” She nods at Matteusz, singling them out as the best potential advocates of calm, then getting up and heading out with Ballon before anyone can raise any further objections.

-x-

The air outside is eerily still but Ballon's senses still pick up on the air currents nobody else can feel. Scents of leaves and wood and the water of the lake just past the trees. Scent of the people in the cabin behind them, people he is coming to see as family, maybe even love; he could pick them all out and Quill beside him, to his relief looking to him for guidance, relying on his senses, his abilities, he feels proud of that, remarkably pleased. He scratches the earth to try and put the scent of that behind him too.

So many sounds too, his own paws on the ground, the voices in the cabin behind, muffled by the walls but still clear in every word, April's face a low murmur like the wind, trying to calm but unable to conceal its own anxiety, Charlie's high pitched, and strung out like the moment before a bow string snaps, it makes him almost anxious to hear it. Then Matteusz and Tanya, the one tone low and soft like fire and velvet and the other bright and spakling like stars; well she always sparkles. He wonders if they know how their tones intertwine, making a pattern that flows together like a rug, he has wanted to be a part of them almost from he first and this is why. But he puts it all behind him, pricking his ears up into the wind nobody else can feel listening for anything off, out of weave with the rest of the woods.

There is is, a smell more than a sound – something dark and oily, insectoid but wrong, it smells like fear, like something trapped, something panicking and out of its own world, its form changing, growing too fast for its awareness to catch up. He knows a bit of what that feels like and he feels sad because he knows hey have to hunt, probably kill it, but it's just a – a – beastie – just a thing let out of a small box and into a world that will always be too big however fast it grows. He runs towards the smell because he must and Quill follows.

In truth they do not have to run far. They see it beyond the trees on the small stretch of sandy beach; as high as a small elephant and twice as long – if it tried to get on the roof now it could hold the whole cabin in its claws. Great, now that he has that image it won't leave him. Quill skids to a halt and motions him to stop as well, not that she needs to. He can feel her shock, almost fear at the sight. He watches mesmerised as the creature drinks from the lake, as though it could take down the whole lake. He looks up at Quill and she nods quietly – _yeah, damn right we're heading away._

They make their way slowly, quietly back to the cabin. When they get in everone looks up at the expectantly and Ballon turns humanoid again.

“I don't know how to say this -” he starts - “But -”

“It's a scorpion.” Quill sits down heavily in the fireside armchair - “It's a bloody massive scorpion. Good work Ram.”

“Hey!” April snaps.

“It was – dust, man! It was bloody dust!”

“It ain't dust.”

“So – what do we do?”

Everyone starts talking at once, and Quill groans softly, all the high pitched yammering and attemps to not panic hurting her head.

“Alright!” she says. Nobody stops talking. “ALRIGHT!” she yells and stands up, everyone stops and looks at her guiltily - “Shut up and listen to teacher!”

“You are not -” Charlie begins, affronted, but Quill shoots him such a withering glare that he stops.

“Class in session. What do we know about scorpions?”

“I'm – not sure what we know can help with one that size,” Tanya frowns - “What did you say Ballon? Two elephants face to face?”

“Two _small_ elephants.”

“Oh good,” Matteusz says weakly. “I am so glad they are only small elephants. For a moment there was almost fear -”

“Shut up.” Quill snaps at them - “Come on people – who's good with insects?”

“Well they're not insects are they?” Ram offers - “They're arachnids? Cause they got eight legs and that.”

“Hmmm. Poorly put but it's a start. What else?”

“They's – poisonous?” April suggests - “Or venomous? Is there a difference? And it's in the tail? I don't think they're usually fatal to humans though.”

“This one is fatal to humans,” Ballon nods - “Very fatal. I could smell it.”

“You can – _smell_ that?” Tanya looks at him - “Okay, moving swiftly on.”

“Okay,” Quill nods - “Arachnid. Like a spider. So. What do we do with spiders?”

“Step on the fuckers.”

“Thank you for the input Mr Singh, now shut up and try not to be stupid.”

“You – get a cup?” Matteusz offers, shrugging. Quill turns to look at him waiting - “You get a cup and a postcard and you put them out the door? Is bad luck to kill a spider.” he shrugs at Ram almost apologetically.

“Yeah well. Not nearly as bad luck as it would be if the spider kills you,” Quill says thoughtfully - “But we _really_ don't have a cup that big.”

“There's a – like a large net in the cellar?” Tanya offers - “If we net it we can – I dunno -”

“Yeah, the flaws just keep opening and opening,” Quill groans - “Okay. Okay. Say we somehow manage to get it in a net. One – how? Two, what the crap do we do with it next? We're nowhere near the rift – hell I don't even think this thing came through the rift – we can't exactly put it out a window -”

“So we kill it.”

“Thanks Ram, slightly less stupid. How?”

“With its own venom?” Ballon offers.

“Thanks well you just made Ram look clever -”

“No wait – one scorpion can kill another right? If they fight and you get it with the tail?”

“Which would be great if we just _happened_ to have a second scorpion that would somehow agree to work for us -”

“Yeah you say that like we don't?”

“Are we really related? Cause you know I'm generally considered quite smart and I'm starting to worry -”

“Mum – shut up. _I_ can fight it?”

“Don't be daft, you're a baby.”

“No – I can't get that big for sure, but I could probably manage like half the size -”

“Then you'd die and I'm voting _no.”_

“What if -”

“Oh, thank god” Quill sighs - “Yes Tanya?”

“What if we catch it, tangle it up and _then_ Ballon stings it?”

“Is anyone actually aware of how preposterous this sounds?”

There is something about Charlie, Quill thinks, whereby she can object to an idea right up to the point where he agrees with it and vice versa.

“Are you aware of how preposterous _you_ sound when you say things like that?” she snaps, feeling remarkably cheered by the chance to do so - “It looks like the only plan we have. Tanya get the net.”

-x-

“This idea,” Ram says, half an hour later in a clearing in the wood, “is going to get us all killed. Whose was it again?”

“Mine,” Tanya grumps.

“I would say group effort,” Matteusz offers peaceably - “So we are all getting ourselves killed. No blame.”

“Oh” April says weakly. “That's alright then.”

“But just for the record -” Charlie nods - “And agreeing with Ram here – we're each going to take a corner of this net, ninja up some trees while Quill offers herself as bait to lure that thing in here with Ballon hiding in wait. Whereupon we ninja _out_ of the trees, dropping our net and breaking our limbs and one of us stays on the ground to pull these loose bits tight around the enormous thrashing scrorpion hoping that nobody dies?”

“That is about right yes,” Matteusz smiles at him reassuringly - “Do not worry. I will be the one on the ground, you all just run as soon as you land -”

“Barring broken limbs”

“Charlie, I love you, shut up. If anyone dies by scorpion it will be me.”

“That's not exactly reassuring.”

“Right, shut up everyone and climb your trees, you – there – Matteusz – there. Nobody spare a thought for the Quill bait, will you. Ah, I see you won't. Right then.”

-x-

Charlie watches Quill go, convinced that everyone in the woods can hear his heart beat for anxiety. In the late afternoon light he peers around the clearing to see where the others are waiting, the same nerves written all over their faces just he he supposes his must be. April catches his eye and smiles with a reassurance he can see she does not feel. On the other side Tanya watches the ground, totally focussed on what is happening and what her next move will be. Only just visible in the fourth corner, Ram looks hunched and miserable and guilty. On the near side to where they expect the creature to enter Matteusz has hidden himself as best he can with the ends of the net in his hands, visibly fighting the urge to hop from foot to foot. He can almost feel his restlessness and Charlie thinks _my heart my heart is there fighting to stay still._ He feels guilty for worrying more about one of them over all the others but _but you always feel guilty about something kochanie, there is no need._ The internalised voice helps a little, it really does. He hears a crashing through the trees and focuses on the ground just like Tanya.

“It's working!” April breathes aloud as Quill comes rushing into the clearing full tilt, pausing for a moment, heart racing, before throwing herself suddenly off to one side as the scorpion crashes in behind her, pausing for just a moment to look around, in which moment they all see it, glistening and segmented, shiny black with green flash in the dying sun. In the moment of it pausing, Quill shrieks -

“Now!” and they jump, covering it with the net; Charlie yells, spraining his ankle and Tanya runs over to help him out of the way. April, taking her ring off just before she jumps, runs over to Ram who shrieks as he lands, the Lothan leg ceasing to work upon impact, and Ram toppling forwards. April half catches him messily and drags him away from the creature thrashing in its net, all of them running into the trees but not so far they cannot see what happens.

Which means that Charlie sees the second scorpion approach from the side, sees the first try to put up a fight but flail helplessly as Matteusz draws the net around it, keeping a hold on the end of the ropes to stop the scorpion running off in its bindings. He sees the smaller scorpion swing its tail into the larger, and the creature rear up as it takes the hit, the woods alive with the clacking and creaking of its swinging limbs. He sees the thing go down and Ballon back off, shrinking and morphing so as to be safe to the others. Finally he sees the scorpion lash its tail in its death throes, swinging it round in a sudden savage arc, and killing Matteusz.

He sees Matteusz fall and die instantly.

-x-

From her corner of the clearing April sees the scorpion rear up as Ballon stings it, she sees its eyes roll and she pities it. She knows – everything sensible in her knows that they had to kill it or it would have killed all of them and she is relieved but at the same time she feels terrible and catching Ballon's eye across the falling black and green body she can see that he feels it too; the regret of what they have had to do here and the terrible thing they have done. She remembers the _this is sad only_ line from _Avatar_ and feels it somewhere very deep inside. She looks down to see Ram wince as he moves his leg again gingerly and thank god, because it _is_ working, if only just, and slowly they come forward into the clearing, April wondering with a sense of dread why everyone is so quiet and where the sense of world spinning surrealism comes from. Then she hears the screaming, wailing sound that makes her blood run cold.

Charlie hears it too, and wonders what can be making that unearthly sound, like something is being pulled apart slowly and torturously- _sombody help it!_ he thinks desperately, wondering why Tanya is looking at him like that, and then he feels the sound like a cyclone hollowing out his chest and realises that he is the one making it and that Matteusz is dead. He died, in a second, crashing to the clearing floor and sending up a cloud of leaves before he could even reach him and he does, falling on his knees into the damp earth and cradling the body as best he can, unable to feel his own hands or stop his own scream and for a moment, an eternity he feels like he might faint because the world will not stop spinning and he is falling through it with nobody to catch him and he can hear the scream turning into a stream of _nonononononono_ sounds that seem very distant and there are blurry people all around who hover, not daring to come closer and he does not want them anyway, does not need a single thing except for himself and Matteusz and this clearing from which he does not intend to move ever.

Someone nearby _is_ moving, and he hears whispers of confusion from the others as the why Quill is running away at a moment like this and the rest of them just stand still unable to do anything, unable to go away, unable to see what they are seeing, torn between heartbreak at the loss of a friend and fear that they may lose another one too because how _could_ Charlie survive this? How can they even dare approach? Tanya sees Quill running back towards them, and _she_ would dare, Tanya thinks with not a small amount of respect and awe, of course she would.

“Charlie,” Quill says, not a hint of anything in her voice. She has to say it three more times and eventually yell it before he will look up. His face is drenched and pale and pleading in the low orange of the last sunlight, begging Quill silently without a shred of pride - for anything, any way in which she can help.

“Here,” she sighs - “Catch.”

Tanya recognises the thing in Charlie's hands before he does and she opens her mouth half way to a gasp because of course, it's perfect but she cannot believe Quill has done it; neither, she can see, can Charlie. He turns the box over in his hands for a long moment as though he does not know what it is before looking back at Quill with a pleading expression, but one which says _are you sure?_

“Yeah,” Quill shrugs, looking back at him gently, the question not needing to be asked.

“But -” he makes himself ask it with a wrench - “- your people?”

“ _Your_ people,” she points out.

Charlie simply looks down at Matteusz, half in his lap, head rested on his knee, touches his frighteningly cooling cheek with a shaking finger gentle as a leaf and looks back at Quill without needing to say more.

“You have to ask nicely,” Tanya remembers out loud and it stabs at her because she remembers how much Charlie hates this but - “You have to say _please.”_

“Please,” Charlie says instantly to the box - “Oh, please -”

She never heard anything more like a prayer and when the words are over they all of them in the clearing hold their breath. When Matteusz breathes, like someone who has been underwater a long time coming up for air, they all breathe with him.

“ _Fuck,”_ he says, and somebody laughs with relief and he turns, frowning, holding on to Charlie to sit himself up. “What happened? Did we win? Why am I on the floor?” He looks at Charlie closely, Charlie's smile chasing away tears like a light coming on in the dark - “What is the matter? Why are you crying?” His face scrunches up with the effort of remembering - “Did I die?”

“Yeah,” Quill rolls her eyes - “Yes you moron, you absolutely died!”

“Ah.” Matteusz blinks this away as too much to process, turning back to look at Charlie, drying his face with his fingers almost absent mindedly.

“If It is not too much to ask – how am I here, please?”

“I -” Charlie leans in to him with the feeling of wings beating wildly inside his chest, as though he died and came back himself, and _I did,_ he thinks, and _I do, Quill has saved my life again -_

“I wished for you.”

__x__

**Ok so huge apologies - I've been ages writing the finale, hence the lack of update but I really thought I'd posted this chapter already, but uh - I didn't, so here it is, it's my favorite chapter so I'm reeeeeaaaally sorry about the wait.**   
  


 


	9. Chapter 9

  
  


**9\. Twenty To Blink**

“I can't stand this,” Charlie hisses through clenched teeth, fists tight. He speaks for all of them without quite knowing it and they all feel it – though perhaps each for a different reason.

For Charlie, just at this moment it is being stuck in the cabin, for one thing, and having been stuck in the cabin constantly for four days since the rain started. Rain is an understatement. All of a sudden one afternoon the storms just came, crackling and growling and tearing apart the trees, churning the bleak beyond into a constant black nightmare. Not a one of them has dared go out in it; there is electricity in the air that does not feel like it comes from this world – in fact Quill has assured them all that it almost certainly does not, and therefore it may not obey any of the usual rules of Earth weather, ergo she has stated that none of them are even _allowed_ out in it until she says so. Certainly the thunder makes the ground rumble beneath their feet as though they have been having earthquakes and even those among them who like thunderstorms – Quill, April and Matteusz – are quietly afraid of this one.

Four days confined to a set of small rooms has been driving Charlie half mad. He has fought against it every day, battling for a calm he can only ever half reach, the cabin seeming smaller every day. The half of him that _does_ still feel on top of things is only stealing that calm, he is sure of it; just as he is sure that Matteusz is demonstrating only half of his stress. And then, as if the growing claustrophobia was not enough, there are the new nightmares. As if it was not bad enough the first time, he has seen Matteusz die at least a dozen times in the weeks since it happened and he is fairly sure that his own nightmares are the least of it. More and more, he finds himself obsessed with his own inability to keep the people he loves safe, and it is all he can do not to blame himself for every last thing that happens to anyone.

“Charlie, calm down,” Matteusz says for the millionth time, and he is sure he sounds more tense and unhelpful every time he says it. He means it compassionately, but now that he hears himself say it _again_ it just sounds bad. He can _feel_ the pressure in Charlie's chest, all but see the walls closing in. He is not sure he can quite cope with this place himself any more; in trying to cut himself off from the knowledge of what happned, he is afraid of cutting himself off from everything. He wonders if there could actually be such a thing as being too relaxed – if all of his general attempts in this direction are not now threatening to isolate him from all sensible feeling and reaction. But then how _do_ you react to dying? He never thought he would have to consider it, and has been trying not to constantly these last few days. Not to mention he knows now what Charlie did – what _Quill_ did in a way, and he cannot stop thinking about everything they have both had to give up to do it, even if neither of them have said anything about it and he has not dared to bring it up himself.

“Don't tell me to calm down!” Charlie runs a hand through his hair, getting all the more annoyed because he can see the others looking at him now, convinced that their expressions all also read as a wish for him to shut up, and in that moment furious with all of them but not wanting to _get_ furious with all of them so adding - “ _You_ should know best why I can't,” and stomping out the front door before Matteusz has a chance to even say _hey!_ let alone point out that this is unfair.

“Well?” Quill arches an eyebrow as the door slams behind Charlie - “Aren't you going after him?” She has to restrain herself from just follwing Charlie out herself, not caring in the slightest about what he has said or how he feels particularly but very much aware that the storm he has just walked out into is not safe – but _also_ aware that it is maybe not her place at this time to follow. She wonders scathingly if it would ever occur to His Highness that the rest of them can't stand this either, especially her – well she supposes they all think _especially me_ for whatever bullshit reason – but inactivity, the expectation of the fight but having to stay still – it kills her a little in a way she is sure none of the rest of them can understand. _Shit,_ she thinks, _and I'm beginning to think like a teenager._ It occurs to her, glaring at Matteusz now, that he must think she is furious at him, that she resents him for the loss of the last wish and all that it could have meant – she is surprised to realise, just at the moment of thinking this – that she is not, and she does not. It was as obvious to her as it was to Charlie that he should live, that the wish was worth it – _and you don't even like him!_ Scoffs the voice in heer head, but it might be lying at least a little.

“No,” Matteusz snaps, and if _he's_ snapping it does not speak well for the mood of the rest of the group - “He is being -” he stops himself from saying _a dick,_ realising that even if he thinks it he cannot say that in front of their friends.

“It's not safe out there,” Quill snaps back. “It'd be just like him to get hit by lightning. Go fetch him in or I will.”

“Oh for god's sake,” April rolls her eyes, getting up heavily from her corner chair - “ _I'll_ go.”

Ram glares at her, she glares back, everyone in the room notices – and in this big open plan kitchen – living room everyone notices everything; the lack of privacy is grating on them all more than almost anything – and everyone is reminded of the argument they all heard from April and Ram's room this morning.

It comes after a week of Ram guilt tripping himself – constantly in his head and too often out loud to April – about everything that has happened. It's been eating him up – even though he knows that Matteusz is still with them, it barely – for him - changes the fact that he _did_ die and that it was his fault and he knows that everyone knows it. And April just _will_ go around with this face that feels so _sorry_ for everyone and so _regretful_ and at the same time neither she nor anyone else will shout at him, accuse him or even gently point out that if Matteusz or any of them even _had_ died it would have been all his fault. Until this morning. Because, finding herself unable to talk to Ram about it April has instead found herself going out of her way to try and help everybody else and even though the alternative would have annoyed him too he cracks when she comes back into their from a heartfelt conversation with Ballon about the guilt they both feel in killing the scorpion and yells -

“What about me April? What about how guilty I feel?”

“But – you wouldn't talk about it? I've been trying to talk to you about it _all week?”_

“Well I'm talking now!”

But of course, by that point it was already too late for talking rather than shouting and there are certain gems from the whole thing that drifted out of their room to whole rest of the group that have made them all as awkward as they can be – _I think Matteusz is a bit more important than the stupid scorpion!_ was one of the worst, and _I don't know why you're all being so nice to me when I know you all wanna blame me for killing him!_ All the way up to the final – no longer even behind closed doors- exchange, because April was half way to storming out by this point -

“ _WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST COME OUT WITH IT AND BLAME ME?”_

“ _WE DO! ALRIGHT RAM? WE DO BLAME YOU!”_

The cloud of it has hung over all of them all day, worse than the storm and they have all stagnated in it, unable to really talk or even entirely make eye contact.

“ _I_ will go,” Matteusz waves April back down, sighing and standing up - “I am going now.”

-x-

Matteusz walks out of the cabin and sighs – Charlie has gone out of the shade of the building and down into the woods a little – close enough that Matteusz can still see him but not close enough to be safe from the storm. It is at times like this that he can see the Prince of Rhodia – fists clenched and shoulders tense, back ever so straight as though he is fighting the storm from the centre. The strange colours of the sky light him up in silver and purple and he can almost see the defiance in the lines of him, daring the lightning to strike him. A part of him hates Charlie when he is like this – arrogant and angry and seething with grandeur and a sense of what the universe owes him – another part – a slightly guiltier part – cannot help with find it almost painfully attractive. Matteusz has long since gone past any sense of being afraid of this version of Charlie either way.

“Charlie.” His voice does not come out as soft as he means it to, having to speak up to be heard over the rain, and when he puts a hand on Charlie's shoulder, Charlie whips round as though startled. He's _drenched_ -even from just minutes out in the rain – water running down his face and neck and frankly it really shouldn't be that sexy, but it is.

“Charlie, come back inside, it is – dangerous out here.”

“Yeah?” Charlie sniffs - “ _I'm_ dangerous.” Something in his voice _could_ make Matteusz believe it, but he more sounds like a child posturing, and Matteusz just looks at him steadily until Charlie relents and at least agrees to go back onto the porch with him. For a moment they just stand there in awkward silence, neither knowing quite what to say; there is a weight of unspoken concerns hanging between them and it feels wrong because normally they have always been so good at talking about everything.

“You know -” Matteusz begins tentatively - “We are all struggling – it is not just you.” He means it as comforting – or at least it was meant to be in his head but he can hear straight away that it comes out wrong and Charlie glares at him as though it is the gravest of insults which immediately stops Matteusz from feeling guilty about how he sounded and instead makes him unreasonably annoyed with Charlie.

“What? You think you must always be special?”

“I didn't say -”

“With that face you say – you say nobody could possibly ever feel anything as deeply as “The Prince Of Rhodia.” ”

“I really see no need for you to take that tone with me.”

In truth, Matteusz had winced to hear himself, but something about _Charlie's_ tone makes it impossible to not continue, let alone apologise.

“Oh I am am sorry, Your Highness, please remind me how to behave in your royal presence.”

“I _really_ don't see why you're being such a – such a dick.”

It would be hard to tell which of them is more surprised to hear Charlie say _dick._

“I mean -” Charlie is aware that in trying to amend the _dick_ comment he is really just shoving his foot further into his mouth, but somehow he cannot stop himself - “I mean I really do not see that you have a right to speak to me in that manner.”

“I do not -?” Matteusz breaks off with a scoff of disgust and when he carries on he is shocked (but perhaps on some level relieved?) to find himself shouting - “Well maybe I do not have the _right_ to be with you at all? Is that it? None of us are good enough for you, are we? Especially – what? You are not even listening to me?”

Before he can get angrier at the fact that Charlie is looking off to one side he notices the Doctor simply standing there in the rain staring at them in wide eyed horror.

“Awww _no!”_ she wails, running up the porch steps to stand between them, looking up with big eyes - “No no no no no, don't be _fighting!_ Not you guys! Please?”

She says it as though just saying _please_ has almost always worked in the past.

“Doctor?” Charlie blinks.

“You are – here?” Matteusz adds, and it takes only this one moment of distraction – not to mention the distraught way the Doctor is looking at them – to make them both feel ashamed and ridiculous for fighting in the first place and to start wondering what in the world made them do it anyway.

“You _can't_ be fighting!” she protests intensely, as though breaking this up is the one reason she has come here - “Because you love each other and it's _brilliant_ and first with the fighting and then you don't stop fighting and then it alls flies mad out of control and suddenly you're best enemies and you hate each other across time and space and everything burns and gets ruined but you can't stop thinking about each other and – and - ” her lip wobbles and she actually looks like she might cry - “- and it's _really_ bad when that happens – okay?” She grins at them so hopefully and so suddenly, despite nearly crying, that they cannot help but be baffled.

“Oooo – kay?” Charlie offers.

“That – that is remarkably specific?” Matteusz raises an eyebrow. The Doctor shrugs half heartedly.

“I was a teenage boy too once. So was – well nevermind about me – you two – a human and a Rhodian – meeting across all of time and space ? You _can't_ be mad at each other, you're too important. Now make up!”

“What just – like that?”

“On the – spot – with you watching?”

“You heard!”

They look at each other guiltily, both of them aware that they had only let it get to this point because they were spoiling to fight.

“I am sorry,” Matteusz says and he means it - “I did not mean to be a dick.”

“I'm sorry too” Charlie drops his head a little - “I didn't mean to call you one – and I should not have talked to you like that – sometimes -”

“Sometimes it is difficult being a superior alien being?” But Matteusz gives that wry half smile that means he is joking – mostly – and Charlie gets it.

“I'm not – I'm really not – at least – I don't mean to be? I was – frustrated with being inside so long and – and -”

“Go on!” The Doctor prompts.

“And – I saw you die – I felt so helpless, I've been so afraid of losing you – and I did, just like that – but I didn't want to say anything because – well – you were the one who died – that's worse than just seeing it happen.”

“No,” Matteusz shakes his head, his hand instinctively reaching to curl around the back of Charlie's neck, bringing their heads closer together - “It is not. I would rather die a hundred times than see you die – can you stop that? It is very distracting.”

He says this last to the Doctor, who has taken an audible breath at _I would rather die a hundred times_ and is still gazing at them rapt with her hands clasped together. She has, in fact, done everything other than actually say _aww_ and make love hearts with her fingers. She does not stop; Charlie finds her easier to ignore.

“But you – I worried all this time that you wanted to talk about it – dying I mean – but you just didn't because you didn't want to uset me.”

“I worried that _you_ didn't want to talk about it to me for the same reason!”

Charlie smiles and they both huff out a breath of relieved laughter and the Doctor makes a tiny sound a little like a squeak.

“Good!” she nods - “Now kiss!”

“What?”

“What?”

“ _Please?”_

Matteusz laughs and shakes his head and kisses Charlie; Charlie presses his forehead in and kisses back.

“Right!” The Doctor bounces a little on the spot - “Okay enough now, we only have twenty minutes!”

“Twenty minutes -”

“- until what?”

“Oh um – the Arrival! We did have forty but this was more important!”

“Than – the world being taken over by Weeping Angels?”

“Trust me. It was more important, still, times a wasting, best get in!”

-x-

“Okay!” the Doctor starts as soon as the three of them step back inside, ignoring everyone's leaping to their feet and the surprised, relieved and concerned cries of “Doctor!”

“Angels are coming. I mean all of them. We have about – eighteen minutes. Was more but I had to save another world first -” She glances at Charlie and Matteusz with a quick smile and they shrug at each other – _world? Does she mean us?_

“So it turns out the Angels have been at war with the Daleks. It's not going well and the Daleks have pulled their planet out of time and space – they can do that – did it to Earth once, long story anyway. Turns out even the home world of the Weeping Angels can't last for very long outside of time and space, and it's dying and of course being who they are, they foresaw this- they've been planning what they would do for over two thousand years, hence their lackeys – Ever Upward Reach. They always meant to settle on this planet, and they've been preparing since the start of your civilization and yes, they'd destroy humanity – I think kill most of you, but create pockets of time loops – people they can keep feeding on. Now luckily that's the first thing they'll do – create their pockets before they start the mass killing, but it won't come to that -”

“I'm not sure I have your faith in that.”

“Now then Miss Quill, no talking in class! Have faith. My folk are working on bringing the Angel's planet back right now – dragging it back to its time and place in the universe – the TARDIS can do that you know, she's a good egg. But it's – gonna take longer than twenty minutes, by which time they will be here and when I say here I mean at your cabin door. So. Here's what I need you to do. First I need all but one of you to blink.”

“What?”

“Valid question from the girl in the front – yes, Tanya, all of you blink, luckily this is one of the pockets where they plan to send you back, lucky coincidence, of _course,_ because I _really_ need the group of you all together because if my calculations are correct – and they sometimes are, especially when Yaz is helping me – the combination of a group of people who have managed to stay together in one time zone mixed with a being that the Angels cannot send back should be enough to create a paradox against their own methods of functioning that will propel them back to their own planet.”

The room erupts in questions, the loudest being Tanya's -

“What do you mean someone the Angels _can't_ send back? Everybody blinks Doctor, eventually we have to.”

“I don't.”

Everyone turns to look at Ballon and the Doctor beams at him warmly. He shrugs - “I mean – I _can_ not if I'm needed to not? I don't have to have eyelids -”

“Okay, now's the part where I mention that whoever doesn't blink is putting themselves in the most danger.”

Ballon shrugs -

“Yeah, I kinda figured that.”

The Doctor beams at him even brighter -

“I _knew_ you were part of this, all this time! Aww you brilliant species you!”

Ballon beams even brighter than the Doctor and changes shape rapidly and repeatedly ina flurry of pride and excitement. When he finally _has_ shoulders again Ram pats him on one -

“Y'alright there mate?”

 _Part of the team!_ Ballon mouths back, silent with excitement, behind him Quill rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, this is all very bonding but what exactly are you asking my offspring to do?”

“Okay. Right. Here. So. You – you plucky little beastie you – sorry that's patronising – is that patronising? You have to take this and when the Angels come for the others you have to stay here in this time and this place -”

She hands him a contraption unbuckled from her wrist.

“What is -” Balon says at the same time as Quill frowns -

“Is that a -”

“Vortex manipulator,” The Doctor nods.

“You're trusting a six month old with cheap and nasty time travel?”

“And a whole set of Doctor improved instructions for use! Right so, from what my good friends the Ponds have told me – if you want to, _really_ hard, you can go back to the same time and place as the last person who blinked. Mind, you won't all end up in the same place, could be – could be here, could be Hull, but whatever happens you _have_ to find each other, if the time differences are much you'll just have to wait – but _don't_ make 'em too much, because you don't want to be waiting too long -”

“Will that – make this not work?”

“Nope, it's just boring. Trust me. Oh and it can age you to death, so _try –_ this really depends on you all loving each other enough -”

“ _Loving?”_ Quill splutters - “I don't even _like -”_

The Doctor stares at her with raised eyebrows until she shuts up.

“Now,” the Doctor goes on - “Once the six of you are back together, _you,_ Master Quill will go and fetch them back to _now.”_

“How will I know -?”

“ _You,_ Miss Quill, will contact me and I will contact _him -”_

“Yeah, but how -”

“One of these -” The Doctor throws her a small white cube. “Cause you might go back to before mobile phones, and then you'll all be struggling in oh so many ways, and now -”

she peeps out of the window and when she turns back looks actually pale -

“Oh dear. I did hope we'd have more time. I mean we did, we have forty five minutes but I had to stop a couple of idiots fighting -”

She eyeballs Charlie and Matteusz with eyebrows she wishes were scarier. They used to be scarier. She sighs -

“Anyway, long story short, Angels, all around you and I have to manipulate out of here, you'll all be _fine,_ I know you will!”

And she vanishes with a beep.

“Great,” Quill sighs.

“Was that – _helpful?”_ Ram frowns.

“Could have been more helpful,” Tanya nods.

“What do we _do?”_ Ram sounds on the verge of panic.

“Well you heard the lady – man – Time Lord -” Quill snaps to cover up that she barely understands more than the rest of them and feels less capable than all of them just now - “We blink and we love each other.”

“Angels are coming – she said they're surrounding the cabin and you're suggesting what? A circle jerk?”

“Shut up Ram!” Tanya drops the curtain and turns away from the window, gritting her teeth against panic herself - “They're not coming – they're _here.”_

“How's the love, guys?” Quill sounds panicked herself as the first Angel smashes through the cabin door and promptly stops dead beneath their combined gaze.

-x-

 

 

**Ok so i got into a mighty balls up with my posting this fic schedule. Cause the finale has to be a two parter (duh!) i had to write it all together and i didn't know at first where the break was gonna be and cause I actually had to do PLOT (*shudders*) it took even longer so I couldn't do it in my usual week AND then i forgot to post chapter 8 - but anyway it's finished now so here's the first part of the finale and the rest WILL be next monday :-)**


	10. Chapter 10

  
  


**10\. Ka-tet.**

  
  


“Great,” Tanya says as they all stare at the Angel, barely daring to breathe - “This is great. This is _fine,_ I guess whoever wants to go last should – I dunno – back out the room slowly?”

Ram finds himself backing back.

“No wait -” April thinks - “What if we all close our eyes together? Won't that help us all go back together?”

“I don't think that's how it works,” Tanya says firmly. “The Doctor said you have to feel the link between yourself and the next person; if we're all trying to think about everyone we'll just scatter – so okay who loves who the most?”

“I don't think we have _time_ to work that out -” Charlie says tensely - “I'm _really_ bad at not blinking, everyone – everyone get out and I'll blink and then – follow me?”

“Right, okay so we're winging it then” Tanya backs away, pushing the others behind her, elbowing Matteusz hard to make him move when she can feel his every instinct objecting at leaving Charlie alone in the room with the Angel, but they do. The last thing she sees before she looks away is Charlie clenching his fists, steeling himself and hears him taking a hissed intake of breath before she forces herself to look away. When she opens her eyes a few seconds later Charlie is gone and the Angel is in the middle of the room, facing them.

“Okay,” she exhales deeply - “This is fine.” She feels like the meme with the dog and everything being on fire but she carries on talking regardless, not blinking, hoping everyone else is making simliar effort - “Quickly then – we do this quickly – who's next?”

It says a lot, she thinks, not entirely happily, for everyone's mental state that nobody takes umbrage with her taking charge or asks her who's died and put her there like they probably normally would, and she would hardly be surprised if nobody was particularly thrilled to offer themselves up to be next to blink at a Weeping Angel and why _does_ she end up in charge half the time anyway? She's three years younger than even the next person up for god's sake. Anyway, she doesn't have long to wait after all because Matteusz pushes past her, nodding rapidly which means he's nervous but determined all the same and of _course_ he is. She sort of half pats him on the arm as he passes her and he sort of nods in acknowledgement.

“Okay,” Matteusz says, walking up to the Angel and nodding, almost like he's chill about this and Tanya thinks this has to be one of the most badass things she has ever seen her life and she has fought alongside Quill - “Do it,” he says, and nods, and she wonders if he is so determined not to look afraid for his sake or to encourage the rest of them but if it is the latter than it sort of _does_ work and she makes up her mind to go next.

 _Charlie,_ Matteusz thinks in the seconds before he closes his eyes and he thinks it again and again like a prayer, he remembers thinking of him, just turning his name over and over in his head so as not to forget it when the Emphani came, he remembers that feeling of focus – _I will think of you and be happy_ and it's easy, suddenly, he realises this at the last moment, even after the tension of the last few days and the arguments of the last few hours, it all fades in comparison to knowing where he has to be because Charlie is alone now, in a strange time and maybe place and where else could he possibly go himself but to be with him – _If you are lost, then I will find you,_ he hears his own promise in the moment before he blinks.

It's the timing it, Quill thinks, when she opens her eyes to find Matteusz gone and the angel once again a few metres closer to them and they all, slowly backing down the passageway but it won't be long before they run out of space so frankly they have to hurry this up. She wonders how they are even timing it as well as they are without talking about it – all of them closing their eyes when the next person blinks and all oft hem opening them in time to see that person gone and the Angel closer.

“Great,” she nods, pushing in to be beside Tanya. “Well that was the easy one. Time to see how much the rest of us love each other.”

“You offering to go next then?” Tanya hisses and Quill swears and steps forward all the same.

 _Fuck,_ Quill thinks, standing in front of the Angel and staring. _How do I want this? How do I feel the bloody connection like the Doctor said? I don't even like them – bad start, shit bad start –_ and does she? She has to really think about it now, and by god, how she has avoided doing this since just about forever – _does_ she not even like them? It feels like she is holding both boys, one in each hand and weighing them up; how she's _hated_ them, especially Charlie, how there was a time when he and by connection Matteusz felt like the worst things that had ever happened to her – shit, she doesn't have _time_ to think about this – she thinks instead about the number of times she has saved their lives, how it felt like instinct to do it even while she talked the big talk about how _things were going to change –_ there she was saving them, even with the Arn long gone; well maybe it was Stockholm sydrome, that would almost be comforting, except it's not, it's very blatantly not that at all, she can't think about each individual time she's saved their lives, cannot analyse why she did it, she can only feel the necessity of doing it, and then at last how she gave Charlie the wishing box without a second thought, because it was _obvious,_ because _of course,_ she was going to do that, give up all chance for her own people, her own planet for one human who was not even hers, because she could not bear to see the other suffer and because in truth there it is – all those times they have talked to her late at night with their worries, made her drinks and sat around in the living room like they were friends. All the times Matteusz cooked for them, slowly, grudgingly – _she_ was grudging, he was only very softly smug – getting her to actually like human food because frankly the boy could actually _really_ cook. All the times in the last few months they have shared the living room in the evening, shared each other's company in familial silence and enjoyable noise like they could be _family_ and _fuck damn it yes alright_ they _have_ felt like her own children just like Ballon alright and is that enough? Is it love? She never wanted to want it to be but she says -

“Okay now,”

and she hopes to hell it _is,_ and she blinks.

“Great,” Ram splutters, more than on the verge of panic, with an Angel two metres away - “Who the hell loves Quill?”

“It's not just Quill,” Tanya takes a deep breath. “It's all of them.” But yes, she thinks, mostly it _is_ Quill, probably – probably she has to maintain a connection to the three of them but mostly whoever went last and that's Quill but there's no time to wait.

“Okay,” she says. “I got this.”

She thinks about the time she cried all over Quill, how when she thought there was nobody there in the world for her there was still Quill, she thinks about all the times Quill has been there for her, however grudgingly she has made it look. She thinks about Charlie and Matteusz and how their love makes her feel all warm and buzzing inside. It's not difficult to know that she loves them, all of them, and where and whenever they are that is where she wants to be so she blinks and she smiles when she does it, confident.

Ram cannot stop himself from blinking out of sheer terror at seeing the Angel so close to them now he could touch it wihtout having to step forward. _Tanya –_ he says their names backwards in his head like a prayer – _Quill, Charlie, Matteusz –_ he hopes to god that the wish is enough.

“Ram!” April cannot stop herself and _of course_ she thinks, _in the end it's always just me, on my own_ but this is a terrible thought to have and kicks herself for it, and anyway Ballon's still here and how much worse must it be for him?

“Don't blink, will you?” She asks, tense. “not until I'm ready – got to – got to get my head right -”

“I won't” Ballon's voice is surprisingly close, surprisingly comforting. “I'm here. It's o -”

April squeezes her eyes shut tight – _RAM!_ she thinks wildly, like the shout in her head will act as an anchor, and the next thing she knows she is lying on the ground on a pavement blinking rapidly and squinting at an unrecognisable place and time.

-x-

Matteusz falls with a thump and sits up slowly, blinking and shaken. He does not think he will ever be able to forget the feeling of being touched by a Weeping Angel, that stone hand on his shoulder – it makes him shudder, however brief the moment was. He rubs his head, adjusting to the new light – it seems _very_ bright and he squeezes his eyes shut again and again in long blinks, getting used to it, feeling really rather sea-sick and off-balance, on the verge of falling onto his back again when he feels a hand in his, pulling him back up to a sitting position and a voice that makes him smile with relief, despite the situation -

“I'm here. It's me, it's – alright, I think”.

“Charlie?”

“Yes – didn't I cover that with _it's me?”_

Suddenly focus is much easier, because it _is_ Charlie, kneeling down next to him and smiling reassuringly. He actually does have the most reassuring smile, whether it is forced or not, and anyway just to see him is relief enough and they fall into a exhaled sigh of a hug, squeezing tight.

“Were you – waiting long?”

“I don't think it was more than minutes, barely -”

“Barely the time I took to blink after you.” Matteusz nods.

“I knew you'd follow me.”

Charlie smiles, and the perfect love and trust in his eyes is so innocent it melts Matteusz's heart.

“Do you know – where we are?” He starts to look around; they seem to be in a field, half way down a hill, a small village below them in a valley and more fields up above them, not far off the outline of a recumbent stone circle – none of it helpful at answering his question.

“I mean – I think it still looks like Scotland, but I don't know?”

“I do not not know, either.”

They stand up, brushing off grass and dry earth.

“I mean at any rate it seems like summer? Not that that's helpful, I suppose.”

“I mean no? We have gone _back_ in time, Charlie so it is not even _this_ summer.”

“Do you know who was going to follow you next?”

“No,” Matteusz scowls at himself, bites his lip in a silent curse at his own stupidity.“I should have – but maybe Tanya? She seemed to be taking control of the situation – I mean as much as anyone.”

“I wonder how long we'll have to wait? Do you think we should stay here?”

“I think it is best not to go too far – if we ll managed to come back to the same time, we do not want to lessen the chances -”

“Except we might _not._ I mean what if it _is_ years – or even months?”

“It will not be years.”

“You're that sure? I knew you would find me, but are you sure we all love each other enough? I mean, who else really feels strongly enough about _us_ to join us _that_ quickly.”

“Awwwwww, fuuuck!” The noise of yelling and extreme swearing fills the air and they whip around to where a figure is slumped against one of the stones in the upper field, raging at the time and place and headache of time travel -

“Miss – Quill?”

The boys look at each other and run up the slope towards her.

“Oh.” She looks up at them from the ground wearily, groaning - “Brilliant that's just – brilliant? Apparently I love you, oh fuck my whole life.”

“But actually it _is_ brilliant?” Matteusz offers a hand to drag her up that she does not take, pushing up herself on the stone and looking around just like they did.

“Yeah. I'm all warm and fuzzy inside,” she grumbles.

“We were – just wondering what to do next.” Charlie tries to stop himself actually smiling at seeing Quill again.

“Of course you were because god forbid one of _you_ makes a decision. Well? How far did you get?”

“I think -” Charlie thinks quickly to try and make up for _not_ having come up with any kind of plan -

“We should at least start to head towards that village – see if we can't find out what year it is and maybe – I don't know – where we are?”

“Genius,” Quill rolls her eyes - “So glad I got here in time. What are you going to do, just walk into a shop and say, hi, what year is this?”

Neither admits to this having been entirely as much as they had planned. Quill sighs.

“Right, follow me. We're on holiday, hiking the Scottish countryside and we got lost in the mist, alright? Oh and don't do anything stupid like forget that I'm you're mum, both of you – do you think you can manage that?”

“You're – our _mum?”_ Charlie's eyebrows stretch to their upper limits - “Why can't we just tell the truth? Besides I'm _really_ not sure any of us look related.”

“Actully, you two -” Matteusz begins before thinking better of it - “no, I am not really sure I can be your brother.”

“Great. You just go in there blazing _this is my boyfriend,_ and see how fast they lynch you,” Quill grumbles. “We don't know what _year_ this is remember? You two – you're illegal up until 1967 and insane until twenty years later on this backwards planet so be good now and listen to mother!”

“Alright, alright!”

“Yes _mum.”_

“That's better.” Quill leads the way down the hill.

-x-

“Hi there!” Quill announces brightly – terrifyingly, Charlie thinks – to the man in the post office. “You won't believe this but we are but three holidaymakers from England lost in the Scottish wilds, could you possibly tell us where we are?”

“Lost you say?” The man looks at her, impassive and not entirely friendly; it occurs to Quill that saying _English_ may have been a bad idea.

“Aye – that's ...right,” she drops the attempt at a Scottish accent after three seconds, not, Charlie thinks, helping their case - “Lost. In the mist.”

“It's sunny.”

“That's right – isn't it though? Isn't it bright? So bright we thought it was mist and – well you see we would really like to know where we are, my poor small sons and I.”

“Your – sons?” The man's eyes go upwards incredulously at Matteusz towering over Quill.

“Yes my – very tall son Matthew -” (“What? she grumbles to Matteusz later. “I didn't know if they _had_ Polish people back then!”) - “And my smaller and far more annoying son, Charles.”

Charlie smiles, also far too brightly, mostly to mask his pain at this attempt of Quill's, though perhaps it is this overly bright grin that convinces that man they might actually be related. He mutters something about the English being crackers and tell them they're in Tarland, near Aboyne and North of Aberdeen.

“That is only perhaps twenty miles from the cabin!” Matteusz points out with relief when they are once again out of the post office - “I saw it on the sign posts.”

“If the cabin's there,” Quill nods. “We still don't know what year it is.”

“It's September twelfth, 1973,” Charlie says, and the other two turn to stare at him. “I looked at a paper,” he shrugs.

After far more debate than any of them think it requires, they agree that they _will_ try and find their way to the cabin. Quill darts back inside to give the man in the post office a map Charlie and Matteusz have between them managed to rustle up, showing the way to cabin as Matteusz remembers it from the jorney up.

“If anyone else- weird shows up,” she says - “Tell them we've gone back to the cabin and give them this?”

The man grunts, which she has to take as agreement and they head off. After a day's hard walking, drinking river water and scavenging food – something Quill is thankfully very good at – they reach the clearing in the woods, finding out with immense relief that the cabin – a much newer shinier cabin – is still there, and, _surprise surpise,_ as Quill puts it – nobody lives there. It is in fact as though it has been waiting for them, and to everyone's relief it is as stocked with food as it was when they arrived in 2018.

“So now what?”

“Now we wait for the others to show up.”

“And if they don't?”

“They will,” Matteusz nods, sounding far more convinced than he feels - “They will”.

-x-

Forty five years later Ballon edges around the Angel and into the sitting room, never taking his eyes off it. It had not occurred to him that it would not go away, that be it months or even years he would have to stay here, unblinking until the others got back. But he had to go _get_ them back. He kicks himself for not asking how he would even know when to go get them – to know when they were all together. He sits and he waits and he stares.

After a full day of this, he feels a strange sensation, looks at the door – still without taking an eye off the angel – growing extra eyes to make this possible – and feels a shiver run up his spine as though he was sure somebody just walked in and he smiles; even though he does not know how he knows this, he knows it, and it is such a relief he feels he could stare at the Angel forever just for knowing -

 _They're here,_ he thinks, _three of them are here._

-x-

Two days later, April appears at the cabin. After the hugging and excitement and _you got here!_ And _you made it!_ After they ask if she kept the directions with the man in the shop, and establish that she did – after all that, April frowns.

“But -” she looks around as though expecting them to appear - “Tanya and Ram?”

“They're not here yet,” Charlie is still smiling just to see her. “Is that – bad?”

“Maybe? They went before me – Tanya went just after you, Miss Quill and then Ram straight after Tanya and I – why aren't I in the same place as Ram?”

“Clearly you love us more than Tanya loves me,” Quill sniffs, surprised to find herself actually feeling a little hurt by the idea.

“I don't think -” April says slowly, thinking about it - “it's going to be at all productive for any of us to start thinking like that, besides -”

she wants to say, _if that was the case surely I'd have met Ram first?_ before she realises that that's exactly the kind of thinking she's just now saying they should not be engaging in.

“We do not really know how any of this works” Matteusz shrugs - “Maybe April you are just better at connecting with people than the rest of us.”

“Oh. Great. Tell that to sixteen year old me,” April sighs.

“I don't think _connecting_ has anything to do with who comes to your after school clubs -” Charlie says thoughtfully.

“Oh well that's a relief.”

“I mean – I mean you have a big heart April, that you've always been willing to share, so willing -”

“Yeah, so willing I had to give half of it up.”

“No it's – look -” Charlie runs a hand through his hair, trying to work out how to say this - “On my planet, love was all about the combination – you see?”

Matteusz nods, because he has heard this before, April frowns, thinking it through; Quill rolls her eyes - “ What I mean is – to combine with someone you had to be open to the prospect of mixing what you both had – it was the closest we had to love, and I've come to realise since that it's not quite enough – that what you humans have is so much more – it leads to so much more – honesty is the closest word I can think of? And maybe that's what this is all about? Combining what we all have as a group to make something powerful enough to defeat a species that doesn't seem to have any of that – I don't mean that in a way that should make you jealous,” he adds quickly turning to Matteusz who nods, not having needed this to be said but grateful anyway.

“God I'm glad you said that,” Quill jumps off the edge of the table she's been sitting on - “Cause this was all starting to sound like some suspicious six way romance.”

“Gross, Quill. Grow up.”

“ _I'm_ the adult!”

Charlie only manages to stop himself telling her to act like it because the laughter of the other two is infectious ,and then he snorts. Even Quill gives a smirk, and -

“What's funny?” comes a voice from the door and there is yelling and beaming and Tanya finds herself in the middle of an enormous five way hug.

-x-

“Something's wrong,” April says. She has said it every day for three months now and all the time has done is make all of their anxieties worse. It is not, as they have discussed when they try to rationalise it, that the wait is so unexpected, and they were as prepared as they could have been in the time that they had for there to be a wait of months or even – but hopefully not – years – but with how easy it was for the five of them, Ram's continued absence cannot but feel wrong. Every few days someone has walked to the village to see if there has been any news, and to get the papers to see if there has been anything anywhere around the country that might link them to Ram, but nothing. After the first month Quill manages to get the collapsing old car by the cabin working and just about running on vegetable oil and in the second month she drives down to Manchester to investigate a report of a man who seems out of his own time zone but it comes to nothing beyond the Manchester police promising to keep them updated if they hear anything more than the papers post.

And they do. _Finally_ after months of worrying they receive a report of a young man in Hull, matching Ram's description, who was found wandering and yelling and apparently, the very polite and helpful young DI says – suffering from some kind of amnesia. Quill and April get real petrol this time and begin the journey down to Hull. Two days later they come back, quiet and subdued with Ram in the back seat, weird and barely responsive but before they can even begin to address this Ballon appears in the cabin, breathless and wild eyed, shifting so fast they can barely look at him.

“Kid, you okay?” Quill frowns.

“Three months!” he yells - “Three months! I've maybe gone a little crazy okay? But I'm here and you're here, and the other one, but she'll have to come too, right let's do this -”

“What – other one?” Tanya scowls.

“With Ram – the one in his head – no time – come _on!”_

He runs, flies, slides from one to the other, drawing them close in a huddle -

“Hold on tight now!”

They all instinctively squeeze their eyes shut and when they open them again they are stumbling on the roof of the cabin, each of them slowly righting themselves against a tide of seasickness to look out below them at a sea of tone Angels as far as they can see, flooding out through the woods.

“They filled up the cabin,” Ballon breathes - “I thought they would.”

“Whaaa -” April can hardly breathe for the sight - “Where did they all come from?”

“And why have they all come _here?”_ Tanya adds.

“And what _is_ wrong with Ram?” Charlie frowns – Ram still has not stood up but when Charlie speaks he looks up at him tilting his head to one side, in a bird-like gesture.

“Do I _know_ you?” the voice is Ram's, but the inflection is not. Charlie takes a step towards him but Matteusz, on an instinct he does not quite understand, holds him back. They all turn to the surprisingly silent Quill who is turning the white box in her hands over and over while it multiplies and grows into something more and more resembling a doorway or portal.

“What _is_ that?” Tanya peers.

“And – how are you knowing what to do with it?”

“Just am,” Quill does not look up from it - “Don't distract me”.

April wonders how not to panic, she feels it well up in her like a great shudder and cannot breathe.

“April?”

“I think – I might be panicking.”

April nods to herself, sitting down in case she falls. Charlie drops down beside her and takes her hand.

“Breathe,” he says - “Just breathe. It feels like death, but it isn't -” He shakes his head a little to hear himself say it and turns a little to see Matteusz smiling at him - “Just – breathe. I didn't know you _had_ panic attacks.”

“I don't,” April takes a deep breath and another and finds herself clinging to Charlie's hand unintentionally tightly. “But – we are _surrounded_ by Weeping Angels, Ram's gone mad or – possessed or something – I don't have a clue what Quill's doing and it's that feeling like -” she breathes again - “Like you're about to go off the motorway all over again.”

“That's quite – specific.” Charlie raises an eyebrow, though he knows what she means quite exactly, that's why he's the one helping her after all. Anyway it's enough to make her laugh a little but a little is enough -

“Funny thing, panic,” comes a voice - “Everyone's got their own specific place it takes them to, their own sensation of car crash -”

“ _Sorry,”_ April says weakly, “to be predictable, but mine _was_ an actual car crash, okay” She looks up to see the Doctor smiling down at her warmly, holdng out a hand. She takes it and stands up.

“You're doing _brilliant,”_ The Doctor nods, the white portal blinking out of existence behind her.

“There is a sea of Angels here begs to differ,” Matteusz offers.

“Pffft. But here you all are, and here _he_ is -” she claps a hand on Ballon's shoulder - “Two things they can't fathom or even start to deal with, obviously obsessing them and leading them _all_ to converge upon _this_ place at _this time_ and yeah – this sea as you call it goes all the way to Aberdeen, maybe a hundred thousand Angels all radiating out from this one place, this point that they can't cope with, it's enough to send them – yep hear that? Hear that?”

The noise starts as though from far away, a clattering, rumbling reverberating sound like a landslide that at the same time rocks the ground, the trees shaking, the very air reverberating as the sound builds and builds into a deafening rumbling grind that has everyone clutching their ears in pain and yelling -

“What _is_ that?”

Words that nobody can hear above the noise, but they do not need to be answered because looking down from the roof they can all see the ocean of Angels moving like waves, see the fluttering of thousands upon thousands of stone wings, the sky torn apart with the sound – one or two of them are sure there was something like that somewhere in the Bible but nobody could have imagined it could be _this_ loud, nobody could imagine anything could be this loud. Their eyes can barely take in the sight of that stone sea shuddering and juddering as though the whole thing is _glitching_ in front of them because that shaking is all the Angels seem able to do, none of them moving forward or making any move to attack.

“It's the paradox!” Somehow they can all hear the Doctor's voice, even over the noise, even though she is not even exactly shouting - “To them you guys are an unfathomable thing – you don't make any sense, which means they're weak, which means I can do THIS!”

As though it is a weapon she flips out her phone -

“Yaz?” she calls down it - “Reverse the polarity!”

For what feels like too long, they stare down at the Angels, waiting for something to happen and then, without a bang or a flash, with just one more terrible shake – they're gone. The woods are clear of all things stone and the silence that follows is so sudden and such a relief as to almost be its own kind of pain.

“What -” Tanya starts to stand up, none of them even really aware that the pain of all that sound and movement had brought them to their knees - “What happened?”

“My friends up there -” the Doctor points upwards to where they can now see the TARDIS hanging almost directly above their heads - “I left them with the co-ordinates and the tech to send the angels back to their own planet at the right time – when they were all together, converged upon you and weak from fighting you – oh yeah, and we brought their planet back, it's not that far away and also um -” in the space it takes her to start looking guilty, everyone starts talking at once -

“So basically you used us as _bait?”_ Quill.

“You're saying we were just a distraction?” Charlie.

“I'm not sure any of that even made sense -” April.

“Okay but reversing polarity's not even a thing?” Tanya.

“And how could we hear you even above all that?” Matteusz.

“Where _am_ I?” Ram – though it does not really sound like Ram and he stares at his hands as though he has never seen them before. The Doctor jumps down from the roof and one by one starts helping the others.

“Alright fam,” they hear her say into her phone. “Bring her down.”

The TARDIS materialises a little way down towards the lake and, uncertain, shell shocked, and stumbling they find themselves walking towards it like a magnet even though the Doctor has not even mentioned them to follow. At the door three people tumble out, and they watch from the sidelines, all the hugging and back slapping and the voices drifting over to them jubilantly -

“See Graham I _told_ you you _could_ fly this thing, Ryan I er – I lost all your phone pictures -”

“What - again?”

“Um -”

The Doctor hands the mobile phone she had been using back to the younger man apologetically and only then turns back to the group, trotting over to them, half puppy-ish, half apologetically.

“You used us as bait,” Quill says, standing a little in front of the rest of them defensively, protectively.

“Aww no, it wasn't like that.”

“I'm with Quill – so what _was_ it like?” Charlie finds himself matching Quill's tone.

“Not bait. Not as such. I _needed_ you, I needed a group I could trust to be as unbreakable as you.”

“Nobody is unbreakable.” Matteusz scowls, Tanya standing beside him echoing the sentiment on her face.

“Also I don't know what the hell has happened to Ram?” April adds accusingly.

“Is this _Earth?”_ the thing that may or may not be Ram asks, sounding disgusted - “Why am I _here –_ did you say _Quill?”_ he turns a face to Quill that is so hostile she takes a half step back and folds her arms, bristling.

“Ah,” the Doctor says - “Right. Um – so you should probably all come inside -”

She ushers them into the TARDIS and when they are all crowded around the console and April and Ballon have announced that it's bigger on the inside, the Doctor begins to pull starmaps and holograms up above the control panel.

“We sort of might have made a few cock ups when we were bringing the Angels planet back; nothing major, just a few er – extra planets brought back from destruction as well, I mean we didn't mean to, and well you know- planets not destroyed after all gotta be a good thing right -”

The Doctor goes on talking but Charlie can no longer hear the babble, as the holographic display of planets comes into closer and closer focus he steps towards it, frowning, peering closely with an indefinable feeling rising in his chest. Beside him he hears Quill take a sharp breath in and feels her hand take his and squeeze it hard.

“Doctor, that's -”

“Yeah, that's -” Quill swallows as they stare up at the beautiful purple planet hovering in the display in front of them -

“- trying to break it to yous gently - ” the Doctor was saying.

“Is that -” Matteusz looks from Charlie to Quill to the planet that has captured their whole breathless attention and works it out just a second before the Doctor says -

“Yeah – that's Rhodia.”

__x__

  
  


**Okay I did mean to post this on monday then I had a leetle drinkey and sort of um forot? Anyway here it is and this IS the end of season2 :-( On the plus side I am definitely writing a season 3 (Return To Rhodia? :-P) (got it planned and started and everything!) Only it might be a few months to get started – maaaybe weeks we'll see how it goes :-)**

 


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